Hard Way Home

A young woman, taken from her family in the late 1700s, struggles to survive and find true love.

This story is written for the "Heroism - Oggbashan Memorial Event 2025" in memory of long time Literotica writer and contributor Oggbashan who died in May 2023. Rest in peace, Ogg.

Since Ogg often wrote stories based in historical times rather than the present, this story takes place in the early days of the American frontier. The language used should be considered to be the speaker's native tongue in the vernacular of the period unless noted otherwise. It's a deep dive into feelings and the period with sex where appropriate to the story. However, if you're seeking wall-to-wall sexual activity, you'll want to look elsewhere.

© SouthernCrossfire - 2025. All rights reserved,

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Kentucky

1776

Some people don't understand why I don't remember much about my early childhood. Perhaps if they'd lived through the horror that I have, they might be glad to not remember it either.

Still, there was a large, warm fireplace, with my mother, a woman with long, blonde hair, who held me and loved me. There was a long journey where my feet hurt and my father, a big man with a bushy, brown beard, who carried me with one arm at times when I couldn't go any further while always carrying his long rifle in his other hand.

Eventually--I have no idea how long it took--my father declared we'd reached our new home. Over the next few days, he, my Uncle Jack, and my big brothers, Silas, Mark, Johnny, and Timmy, built a small cabin where we could live while they cleared some land for planting. It was springtime and my dad was concerned about getting in a crop and my mom was concerned about turning the cabin into a real home for us.

We made progress every day, with the men and the boys working the field, building a barn and fences, and, from time to time, hunting, while my mom taught me how to churn butter (which I always thought was funny, for some reason) and make what we needed around the house as well as how to cook and clean. She usually schooled me as we worked, making my 6-1/2-year-old brain feel as tired as my arms after making butter, but, like my mother, I felt happy at our progress.

And I enjoyed eating the butter.

*****

Men came to our home from time to time, and their whispered conversations with my father seemed to worry him. When I asked, he said it was nothing for me to worry about, but each night, before they tucked me in my new bed in the attic, Mom and Dad reminded me to be silent when they instructed me.

"Remember, honey, if we ever tell you to be quiet, don't say a word, just like when we were on the trail coming here; your life may depend on it."

I always nodded, not really understanding until that night during the heat of summer when the raiders came.

That night, my mother put two fingers to my lips and said, "Be quiet, Eliza, honey! Remember what we've taught you. No matter what you hear, don't make a sound! Please, honey, please, don't make a sound! Daddy and I and your brothers and Uncle Jack all love you. Remember that, no matter what you hear, and don't make a sound."

She hugged me quickly and put me in the little cellar and closed the door over me, repeating as it shut, "No matter what you hear, don't make a sound!"

And I heard things that night, terrible things, as I cried, holding my hand over my mouth trying to avoid making noise like Mommy and Daddy had told me. Loud, frightful noises occurred in the cabin above me: rifles firing, lots of rifles, the breaking of timbers, people screaming and scuffling, and then, most frightful of all, silence.

Time passed in the darkness, but I had no way to tell how long it was so I sat, my arms hugging my knees, wanting my parents, my brothers, and my uncle. My stomach gnawed at me and my lips and mouth were dry, making things even worse.

Eventually, the silence gave way to whimpers and then sobs and the sobs turned to screaming. That was another horrible sound, but this time, the sound came from me.

*****

I awoke, sometime later, draped over my father's chest and shoulder, my arms wrapped casually about his neck, much like I'd done during parts of our long journey to our new home. Feeling me stir, he patted my back like he'd done so many times on the trail. Still exhausted from my ordeal and feeling safe again, I dozed off once more.

When I awoke again, it was sunrise and we'd stopped, but my sense of safety was gone in a moment when I saw the men in the little clearing around me. These weren't my father and uncle and brothers. These weren't even people like me.

They were Indians!

My mouth opened to scream, but a man knelt beside me and put his fingers to my lips, just like my mom had when she'd put me in the cellar. Just like she'd done so many times as we journeyed to Kentucky and our new home. Then he pointed in the distance. Though still ready to scream, I now heard gunfire in that direction.

A battle, or perhaps another raid?

I looked at the man feeling terribly frightened, but, keeping those two fingers to my lips, he handed me a skin of water with the other hand and let me drink, whispering a word, repeatedly, as I took a sip and then drank more. The men with him seemed alert, focused on the sounds in the distance.

It was only later that I realized these men carried no rifles. These men wore no paint, only moccasins, breechcloths, and beaded necklaces, some with large teeth or claws. All had large knives and hand axes or tomahawks, some with the handles decorated with drawings, carvings, and even feathers on a lanyard. Most had a leather pouch and waterskin, and all had a bow and quiver of arrows strapped across their back. Large bundles of furs were strapped to poles resting on the ground in the little clearing.

One man reached for his bow but the man next to me, who had a piece of brightly colored tortoise shell on his necklace, shook his head. Though the men seemed as wary of the sounds as I was, the man waved that way, once then twice, indicating that they were quite some distance away.

Leaving the others on watch, the man turned and offered me food, what I later learned was pemmican, a dried cake of venison, ground corn, nuts, berries, and animal fat, among other ingredients. He shared with me, breaking off a piece and eating it, before whispering another word, again repeatedly, and then motioning to me, as if to repeat it. I tried and he nodded, giving me what I believed was a kind smile.

I thanked him and, though I don't think he understood the words, he seemed to understand my intent and nodded.

My stomach no longer hurting quite like it had been and my thirst quenched for the moment, I looked at the man and said in a very quiet voice, "I want my mommy and daddy."

Again, though I doubt that he understood the words, my intent was clear and his face fell, looking sad, as he shook his head. He quietly said a word that sounded harsh to my ears as he pointed away in the distance, toward the gunfire. "Saawanwa," he said again, repeating that and another word several times before he patted my arm and shook his head.

Pointing to himself, he said a word I later came to understand was his name, Scarred Turtle, and to me, saying another that I eventually came to know as White Doe.

"Eliza," I demanded, putting my hands on my hips like my mother when she really wanted something of my father. The thought brought more tears to my eyes and I started crying again.

Squatting beside me, Scarred Turtle gave me a compassionate smile and pulled me into his embrace, patting my back and shushing me. When I stopped crying, he separated us and said, "Eliza White Doe," and then he put his hand over his heart and patted a few times before placing it mine and repeating the action. "Scarred Turtle, Eliza White Doe," he said once more and then pulled me into his embrace and patted my back again.

He picked me up and the other men picked up the poles so that the large bundles hung below them. Repeating "Saawanwa" again, he pointed the same way as before and then put his finger to his lips, motioning for silence. Then, he carried me as the men with the big bundles followed along.

*****

The events of the next few days are mostly a blur in my mind, with the major point being that we traveled quickly and quietly.

I recall on one of our stops, Scarred Turtle combed my tangled hair with what I believe was a grooved shell and then he wove a single braid that stretched a little way down my back.

On the second or third morning, I awoke to find a set of moccasins; Scarred Turtle helped me put them on and then laced the top to make them fit me. The little shoes were mostly undecorated, but there was a piece of tortoise shell sewn on the outside flap of each moccasin. I thanked him using a word he'd taught me; the men laughed, and he shushed them. Smiling, he corrected my pronunciation like my parents frequently had with my English, and then squeezed my hand.

A couple of days later, a new, sleeveless leather dress awaited me; it was crudely made in comparison to the moccasins, but I was still glad to have it because the nightdress I'd been wearing since the cellar was in terrible shape, dirty, worn, and frayed. Like the moccasins, it had a small piece of tortoise shell sewn on each shoulder strap, this time with a belt around the waist to adjust it to size.

Again, I thanked him, and it was only then that I noticed the piece of tortoise shell on his necklace was much smaller than I remembered it being before. Though I was still scared and still missed my parents greatly, I reached out and gave Scarred Turtle a hug, causing him to smile.

With my moccasins, I walked some but Scarred Turtle continued to carry me much of the time, particularly when the path was rough or when I was just too tired to go on. We were now far from the Saawanwa but we increasingly encountered another enemy: mosquitoes.

When traveling near streams, as we often were, they seemed to be worse, but Scarred Turtle had a solution. He spread what I later learned was bear grease mixed with a type of ashes over my exposed skin to protect me; I'm not sure how it worked but I suspect the mosquitoes just hated the smell as much as I did. I eventually got used to it and continued wearing it since it gave my delicate white skin some degree of protection from the bright summer sun.

It also made me look a little more like Scarred Turtle and our companions.

One day, Scarred Turtle and the men became more animated as we walked, speaking more openly among themselves; their hunting expedition had gone well. They'd been teaching me their words as we traveled and I understood the words "river" and "home." That made me sad, since I no longer had a home, but Scarred Turtle seemed to care for me and his words that seemed to mean "my home is your home" gave me some comfort.

Their canoes hidden a short distance into the woods were brought out and the big bundles, filled with furs, skins, and dried meat, were distributed among them. Though I didn't understand it at the time, they even had a bag of salt they'd refined from the brine of a salt flat. Scarred Turtle also told me later that the iron kettle they'd used to boil it down had been buried near the flat so it could be found and used again on future trips so they could carry more goods back to their village.

The river was wide and scary, but Scarred Turtle set me in the front of his canoe, worked to balance the load, and then paddled across, going downstream quite some distance before entering a tributary river and going upstream on it.

We stopped each evening and made camp to rest and reseal the canoes before continuing on the next morning. The further we went upstream, the smaller the river seemed to become until one day, the braves in the canoes in the front of the group jumped out and pulled their canoes to the side, shouting as several people came down the little bluff toward us. It looked like a joyous reunion as several of the braves embraced women and, in a few cases, small children, and scooped them up and twirled them around.

A woman ran toward Scarred Turtle but she hesitated as she saw me sitting quietly in the front of his canoe, wanting more and more to be able to hide under the bundle of goods behind me. Scarred Turtle ran to her and embraced her much like the others; they kissed like my parents often did, with the woman cupping Scarred Turtle's face like she didn't want to let go.

It was when they released and he started to turn toward me, still cowering near the front of the canoe, that her hand stretched out and touched his chest, or rather, the necklace on his chest. She took the piece of tortoise shell in her hand and looked at it before looking Scarred Turtle in the eyes. He looked toward me and then led her, hand in hand, to me.

As she neared, she saw the little decorations on the shoulder straps of my dress and nodded. Smiling, first toward Scarred Turtle and then toward me, she extended her hands as if in welcome and picked me up out of the canoe, pulling me into her embrace and then pulling Scarred Turtle in with us as tears streamed down her cheeks.

*****

Northwest Territory

1788

It was early spring and the men of our village were preparing the fields around our village for planting. Since they were busy, I'd promised my mother, Bird Who Dances, that I would bring home something good for dinner.

So far, I'd found nothing. One of my snares had been sprung but it hung empty, and the others waited patiently for the rabbit or small beast that might never come. Therefore, though it probably wouldn't please Mother, I resorted to the bow my father had taught me to make and I was quietly stalking a big gray squirrel. Even with the last of my three older brothers having recently taken a wife and left our wiikiaami to start a family in his own home, I knew I'd need more than one squirrel but this guy would be a start. Sighting down my arrow and making one last adjustment, I let the string slip from my fingertips.

The squirrel must have sensed something for he turned just as I released it. The arrow flew straight and true, but the squirrel was no longer there and my arrow struck the base of the tree, the shaft shivering. I was reaching for another arrow, hoping for a second shot before he got away, when another arrow impaled him, pinning him to the trunk.

I spun around to see who was claiming my prize only to see Running Bear grinning at me from a few feet away.

"You!" I exclaimed.

He grinned even more. "I didn't want you to go home empty-handed if you were going to invite me to dinner."

"Who said I was going to?" I groused, mad at myself for missing and mad at him for guessing my plan. "And why aren't you in the field working?"

"We finished. Your father said we'd start planting tomorrow but the tilling is done; today's field is the last one for this year. I grabbed my bow and have harvested a few things that will make very good eating... for someone."

He added my squirrel to his string, which already had a nice rabbit and two other squirrels and then he grinned at me again. "Of course, if someone would invite me to dinner, I'd be willing to share these... and share the credit for them."

Now he was making me even madder. I stepped up in front of him and poked his chest. "Listen to me, Running Bear, I would never, ever, take credit for your effort!" My voice was a little louder than it should have been, but then again, he deserved it. "Why would you even suggest such a thing?" I demanded.

"How else would I be certain that you'd get in my face so I could do this?" he asked laughingly before taking my arms in his big, strong hands, and pulling me close against him. Leaning down, his lips covered mine, and my world seemed to spin as I slid my arms around him and kissed him back.

With Running Bear dressed in only a breechcloth, I felt his strong chest pressed tight against my breasts and his equally strong manhood starting to salute me down below, pressed against my mound, making me want him even more. Unfortunately, he had not yet been to speak with my father so we were a little limited in what we could do.

A little.

"I want you so badly, White Doe," he whispered as his hands roamed over my body, heating me up even more. "I look forward to the day when I can sow my seed within you so you can give me many fine sons and daughters."

"Many? I think you said six when last we spoke of our offspring," I giggled as I worked the breechcloth open and slipped my hand inside to grasp him. Beginning to pump him toward his great release, I teased, "Is six more than or less than 'many'?"

"Few," he breathed. "Six is only a few. I want many, many children with you, fine young braves and beautiful young daughters who look like their mother."

"Many, many? Oh, I will be a very, very busy mother, needing to be plowed a great many times to bear you that many fine children."

"Oh, sweet Doe! Fuck!" he panted, his breathing shallow but fast and furious. "Oh, fuck!"

His cock was completely out of the breechcloth now, my hand moving more quickly to match his breathing. The beginning of a long, deep groan led me to point him away and pump a few more times before the first gout of his seed went flying in an arc away from us.

I giggled as I slowed but pumped him a few more times. "I don't think I've ever seen you go that far. Of course, we have only done it four or five times, so maybe that's not enough to really tell."

"Seven times," he gasped. "That was the seventh. I know, because I've counted and cherished every one, though I believe that is the best so far. You keep getting better and better at it." He was grinning when he said it as I milked the last little bit out of his foreskin. When he was done, I licked my fingers as I grinned at him, cleaning them of the bit of his spilled seed but also being quite suggestive in what our future might hold together.

Finished, Running Bear started adjusting his breechcloth, making sure his manhood was tucked within the cloth and that the cloth was the proper length in front and in back. As he was doing so, I grabbed his string of rabbit and squirrels and started running away. Calling back to him, I said, "Running Bear, you're very welcome to join us in our wiikiaami for dinner this evening. Bird Who Dances will want to thank you for the bounty you've given us."

Running Bear was a fast runner, but I had a nice lead by the time he started and I was a very fast runner, too, so I reached our home just before he could catch me. Shaking my head, I warned him off and he went on by, with both of us wishing he'd been able to catch me and with me wishing I'd been able to let him.

*****

Each evening that spring, Running Bear and I would take a walk and, on many occasions, I would take special care in determining how far his seed might fly. He grinned each night and it wasn't long before he began to experiment with touching me, raising the bottom of my skirt up enough to reach the right spot.

The young man was a fine warrior, smart, swift and brave, but he had no idea what he was doing under my deerskin, so I would have us sit together and tell him what felt good and where. It didn't take long under my tutelage before he reached the point I could let him go so I could lean against him with my eyes closed and enjoy the ride.

After we were finished, we would sometimes sit and look up at the stars, though, more frequently, we would sit and kiss and touch each other even more, wondering what it would be like when we had permission from my father to go into a wiikiaami of our own.

"Twenty," he said one evening as we lay on our backs looking up at the stars after we'd both had our turn at ecstasy.

"Twenty what?" I asked.

"No, not twenty-what. Just twenty will be fine."

I rolled over against him, resting my breast against his chest as I stared at him in the moonlight. "What do you mean by that? 'Twenty will be fine'?"

"Oh, I've been thinking since you asked, about how many is many? Twenty, I've decided, is many. You'll bear me twenty children and I think that should be enough."

"Twenty?" I said, gulping. "You want me to bear you twenty children?"

"Yes," he agreed as if it was nothing, but I was thinking of Darting Dragonfly, an older woman in our village.

Darting Dragonfly had been pregnant practically nonstop for as long as I could remember. She had at least twelve children and long, saggy breasts that usually had one or more children attached. While I wanted several children, I didn't want that many and I liked my breasts right where they were, nice and high on my chest so I wouldn't trip over them and so Running Bear could touch and kiss them without having to bend down or roll them up.

"Twenty is many," I agreed, "but I think that may be a few too many unless you want these tits banging on my knees. You said you like them like this, right?" As I asked that, I pushed one strap down to free my breast so he could admire it in the moonlight.

"No, I said I love them like this," he said, bending down to kiss the pert little nipple that capped my pink circle. Unlike my well-tanned face, arms, and legs, my breasts were white like snow and Running Bear raved about them, talking about their color, their shape, and their softness, while looking forward to the time they might dribble milk for him after our baby was sated.

Moments later, he was suckling on my nipple, causing me to moan from the sensation, but then it became even more intense as his hand slid up my thigh, only stopping when he reached my valley.

"Not again," I breathed as his fingers rubbed me but his touch was magical, transforming my lack of desire to a burning flame in just moments. "Oh, fuck. Yeah," I moaned as his wet fingertip found my little kernel and started swirling and then flicking it as he continued nursing my tit with his lips.

Losing it, he whispered, "Such language, little one."

"Shut up," I replied, pushing him back down on it, even as his fingers continued their magic. "Oh fuck!" I moaned as I came, leading to a giggle a short distance down our little river.

Startled, I whispered "Fuck!" as if a scream, causing Running Bear to lose my nipple again as he laughed aloud.

"I think someone over there has the same idea as us," he pointed, chuckling, before helping me up. "We better get you home. It's getting late and it looks like a storm is starting to roll in."

It was sprinkling by the time we reached my parents' wiikiaami, and was about to start pouring down by the time Running Bear finished kissing me goodnight. A flash of lightning lit the sky and allowed me to see my brave, soaked warrior about to enter his parents' home in the distance. Smiling, I lowered the flap to try to keep any more water from blowing in.

*****

My mother gave me a good talking to the next morning, reminding me to have fun but not to have too much fun.

"I recall the days with you father; Running Bear reminds me a great deal of Scarred Turtle back then, self-assured to the point of cockiness and willing to do anything to, ahem, plow my field before my father agreed."

"No!" I said, surprised, and was even more surprised when she nodded that it was true. "But, Mom, we haven't done anything like that," I assured her.

"I know that, Sweetheart, nor did your father despite our wishes. What I'm saying is that I know how hard it is since I went through it just like you are. My father was the village chief then just like your father is chief now, so I'm having this conversation with you just like my mother had the almost identical conversation with me. Or at least as identical as I can remember it, anyway," she added with a laugh.

"Just remember, dear daughter, it wouldn't be good for her or for the chief if the chief's daughter-- his only daughter, mind you-- were to have her field plowed, or Great Spirit forbid, even planted before the aspiring planter took the correct step of speaking to him. Do you understand?"

I nodded and hugged my mother, the woman who hadn't given birth to me but who had loved and raised me as her own. Despite giving my father three sons, she'd never been able to give him a daughter, so, as I grew up, I realized that his gift of me to her as their daughter was one of his best gifts ever. Bird Who Dances hugged me back and I think I saw both a smile and a tear on her cheek when we parted.

*****

Though I didn't know the exact day it would happen, I wasn't surprised some days later, with over half of our fields planted, when Running Bear came to speak with my father, bringing a number of gifts.

My father looked skeptically at Running Bear, making me wonder if he would decline while I stood to the side watching, biting my lip, as my mother stood next to me holding my hand. When I started nodding rather frantically, trying to influence my father at least a little bit, Bird Who Dances gripped my hand much harder, reminding me of my place in the little ceremony.

"More," said my father to which a now practically destitute Running Bear looked at me then pulled his knife from his sheath and laid it on the pile in front of my father. The knife was one he'd obtained from a trader a couple of years before, shining steel and razor sharp, and which he valued highly.

I think Father knew that and that's why he said, "More," having Running Bear show, at least symbolically, that I would be the most valuable thing in his life. When Running Bear placed the knife at Father's feet, my father bent down, picked it up and examined it, as if seeing his reflection in the blade. His deepening frown worried me before he turned to me and winked.

My knees felt weak and my mother squeezed my hand harder still to keep me from shouting with joy.

Nodding his agreement on the value, Father gave us the permission to marry as Running Bear wished, before handing the knife, hilt first, back to my now-betrothed, who placed it back in its sheath. He said something to Father in a whispered tone and then turned to take me in his arms and kiss me.

Claps, shouts, and laughter erupted as most everyone in our village watched. The next day after the daily planting was done, many people came to help us build our new wiikiaami in the spot we'd selected near the edge of our village and not far from the riverbank. When our new home was complete a few evenings later, we moved in the gifts that Running Bear had brought my father, gifts not for my parents but as a sign that he could provide and furnish a comfortable home for us.

For our joining ceremony at the riverbank the next evening, Bird Who Dances had already made me a new dress and new moccasins with bear claws and colorful beads she'd obtained from traders over the years. While I usually wore my golden hair slathered in the ash-infused bear grease, this day she had washed my hair so carefully, letting it flow free, and brushing it with a big, boar-bristle brush until it shined like the sun. When Running Bear saw my father escorting me up to the joining site, he smiled and when I was close enough, he whispered that I was the most beautiful woman in the world.

"You're silly, but I appreciate you thinking that," I replied, leaning forward to kiss him before my father grunted a warning and gave me a look, reminding me that was to come later in the ceremony.

My parents gave us more gifts following our joining on the riverbank, as did some of the villagers, after which everyone formed two lines in the direction of our new home and then rained flowers down on us as we hurried between them. There were cheers for us as we entered our new wiikiaami, but, moments later, the crowd dispersed, leaving us together in love and silence.

A tallow lamp was attached to the center pole to give us light when darkness fell, but there was some time left before that and the uncovered smoke hole and open front flap of our home allowed us plenty of light to see as we stood before each other.

Running Bear was dressed in a new deerskin shirt, breeches and breechcloth, and moccasins, all of which had been made and beaded by his mother. Instead of having bear claws as decorations like my dress, he wore a leather thong necklace with big, black bear claws alternating with red glass beads brought by traders, making it most striking and my man most appealing. Finally, Running Bear naturally had very little facial hair, but he'd plucked what little there was and had shaved the sides of his head, leaving a strip down the middle which ended in a small braid in the back.

As I said, he was quite striking and extremely appealing.

Standing before him, I must have licked my lips because, in the middle of a somber time with him telling me how much he loved me, he started laughing, pulling us together and tipping us over on our thick pallet for the first time.

At least he told me later about the hungry, lip-licking. I honestly don't recall it, though I'm sure I'd never hungered for him as much as I did at that moment. His lips on mine, his hands touching me, I was all his, forever and always, and I smiled as that hand slid on my thigh, all the way under my skirt, only stopping when it reached my soft heat.

"Someone's on fire," he whispered, kissing my neck, nibbling on my earlobe.

"I'm on fire for you, my husband," I replied, my hand sliding down inside the front of his breeches so I would feel his own strong flame raging for me. "I think we need to let this out to play before it gets overheated and catches fire in there," I teased, stroking the front of his rigid length with my open hand.

"This all feels wonderful, my sweet Doe, and I love how you look in your dress, so beautiful, but I'd like to see all of you now."

"Only if I can see all of you too," I laughed, suggestively tugging up on his tunic.

We rose to our knees in the middle of our pallet, taking a while with all of the kissing and touching that continued until, grinning, Running Bear's hands caught my wrists. He pulled my hands to his lips, kissing each one, and then placed my hands on his shirt. "I think that's what you're looking for."

"No, not exactly," I countered, "though it's a good start." I pulled the shirt up and over his head, tossing it to the side, so I could run my fingers over his nice, strong--

He caught my hands again. "Hey, sweet girl, don't get carried away before I get a turn."

"I'm not getting carried away... yet," I replied, swatting his hands away so I could finish running them over his strong chest and his nipples. I kissed one and then the other, admiring my man with much love before pulling away and raising my hands straight up over my head as I looked him in the eyes.

"Such beauty," he breathed taking the bottom of my skirt and pulling it up to reveal me--

It got stuck then and I started giggling hysterically. "The belt, silly! You have to undo it."

"Fancy female clothes," he groused teasingly as he dropped the skirt back down and reached behind me to untie the crossed belt. I was grinning, seeing him be all thumbs trying to untie the knot when all that was needed was to pull the tie to release it. "Damn, girl. Maybe it would be easier in the future if you'd just stay naked for me."

"That can be arranged... sometimes," I agreed, still chuckling.

"Oh, there. Got it."

I raised my arms again over my head, surrendering all in this moment of truth as my dear husband saw all of me for the first time. The bottom of my skirt went up, exposing me and then the top, exposing the rest, including the deep white of my hips, my belly, and my breasts--

I heard Running Bear's breath catch.

--and then it was slipping past my head and off my arms, only to be sent flying like his shirt.

"So beautiful, White Doe. You have to be the most beautiful woman in the world."

"And you have to be the biggest flatterer, my sweet Running Bear, though I really like your flattery," I laughed.

His hands touched me, running up the white of my sides, over the sides of my breasts, and then stopping at the tan line, his finger tracing the smooth line that highlighted the two very different sides of me. He leaned in and cupped my white breast and kissed my nipple, lightly sucking it between his lips and pulling away to let it pop and bounce a bit. "Yes, so very beautiful," he breathed before standing straight on his knees in front of me again.

"Breeches, my love," I said, indicating that it would be easier to remove them if he was standing fully. He took the hint and stood while I continued kneeling in front of him. I easily undid his belt with a grin--

He rolled his eyes at my teasing.

--and then lowered the pants, being careful not to snag his saluting warrior as I did. While I'd played with him a number of times, I'd never taken a close look from this angle. Strong, rigid, veiny, it looked ready to do much work. Wanting to encourage it on its way, I leaned in and took the heated rod in both hands to massage up and down a few times and then kissed the tip only to discover it was more ready than I expected, leaking precum that my mother had told me could act as a lubricant when my man was really excited and ready.

That was so encouraging, that he was so ready for me, so I kissed the front once more and then pulled him down to his knees in front of me. We kissed again for a bit, our hands roaming and exploring, before Running Bear slipped an arm around me and steered to ease me down.

He positioned himself over me on his hands and knees, kissing and caressing me as I felt the heat of his rod touch my mound and then the head rub my cleft. Dying to feel him, I reached down and got him to the right spot where he could enter me.

I must have been quite ready too, for my pussy was wet and the head of Running Bear's cock entered me, filling me up, pushing my walls apart. I felt the sting that Mom had warned I might feel but it wasn't bad, just another one of the sensations I was feeling for the first time, and it was soon forgotten as Running Bear withdrew a bit to try again.

"Oh, so sweet, White Doe," he grunted quietly as he slowly withdrew and pushed in again, going deeper this time, and deeper still, until I felt him pressed tight against me. I gripped his ass, holding him there for a moment, relishing the fullness, before nodding.

"Make love to me now, my Running Bear. Plow my pussy and give me your seed."

"Gladly, my love," he whispered as he started sawing in and out of me, slowly at first, while holding and kissing me. I moved with him, bearing down on him, bearing against him, and the sweet loving soon became more fevered as our pace increased and the sweat poured as we thrust against each other, the passion and the pressure building until it finally exploded in wonder, stars in my brain and Running Bear's great cock pulsing deep within me.

I was still grinning from the wonderful sensation when I opened my eyes to see Running Bear smiling at me while still buried inside me. "I love you, my White Doe, both now and forever."

I leaned up and kissed his lips while holding his ass to keep him in me. "I love you too, my Running Bear, and I'm so very happy to be here with you, to be your wife. Now, do you think you can love me like that again in a little bit?"

*****

It was less than three weeks later, just days before the start of summer, when a small band of braves came to our village to trade. My father called our village out to greet our guests so I put on my best dress, the one my mother had made for my wedding, and I joined Running Bear as we went to the feast in honor of our guests.

It was as we were entering the area that the feast was to be held that my father saw me and I saw the look of surprise, perhaps even fear, cross his face, and I realized I had made a mistake.

When guests visited our village when I was young, I usually stayed away or stayed well away from them so they wouldn't realize that I was different than the other members of our tribe. Now that I was grown and was Running Bear's mate, I no longer believed that mattered, but seeing my father's look and then looking at our guests, I realized how wrong I was.

These were Saawanwa, warriors of the tribe that whites called Shawnee.

The Saawanwa, some of whom had raided my former home and killed my birth parents and my family.

Seeing this, I stopped Running Bear and stepped behind him but it was too late. One of the Shawnee warriors was staring straight at me, my golden hair and fairer skin giving away my origin. The brave quickly turned to my father and an angry argument ensued. Running Bear told me to stay and went to my father, interposing himself between Scarred Turtle and the insistent brave.

In that moment, I feared for Running Bear's life, for while he was a brave warrior, the man opposite him was even larger and was older, scarred with the experience of countless battles.

Scarred Turtle called out, "Enough!" and one of the Shawnee said something probably similar. Running Bear and Two Dogs, the name I learned of the Shawnee brave, backed away and nodded to each other. My father and the Shawnee chief who'd prevented the fight spoke in counsel before telling everyone to let the feast continue.

I was uncomfortable though, for as I sat with the women of our tribe, I could feel Two Dogs' eyes upon me, always watching me. Not liking that at all, it wasn't long before I got up and left, heading back to my home. It was getting late, the sun tipping toward the horizon, and I became fearful when I sensed something behind me. I drew my knife and spun around, the knife out in front of me, ready to defend myself.

"Hold, my sweet Doe," said Running Bear, pulling up from his run just paces behind me, his hands up, ready to protect himself and disarm me if needed.

"I thought--"

"I know. You needn't worry about him this evening. Your father is having our guests watched following the trading. They will depart in the morning."

"That man scared me," I said. "I feared what he would do to you if it came to blows."

Running Bear put his comforting arm about me. "Fear not for me, little one; I can take care of myself in battle. The scare's over and now I return you to our home where I plan to make you forget anything other than me.

My sweet mate did just that, gently removing my dress but leaving the bear claw necklace he'd given me on our wedding night nestled between my breasts. Easing me down, he kissed me, repeatedly, on my lips and then my breasts before caressing my nipples with the backs of those great, black claws, tickling me as much by the feel as by the fact that my man had hunted and slain the big bear from whence the claws had come.

Our kissing continued but Running Bear's kisses started trailing lower, down my belly and then over my blonde thicket that he so admired. Spreading my legs further, his lips touched me and his breath heated me, making me want him even more, as he started using his fingers to excite me as I'd taught him to do. My passion rose, higher and higher, before crashing like the sound of summer thunder, shaking me as I whispered my love to him.

When my eyes opened, it was dark in our wiikiaami, but I felt Bear's breath on my cheek. "Are you good, my love?" he asked.

"Much better than good, my sweet Bear," I replied. "Now, make love to me, please." I spread my legs wide, kicking my heels up in the air like a running deer, and let him settle between them to bury his stiff cock deep within me. There, he plowed me to great effect before sowing his seed yet again.

*****

With the trading concluded, the Shawnee left the following morning without incident and our men began preparation for a hunt similar to the one where I'd been rescued many years before.

However, our men no longer felt it safe or worthwhile to journey to the great hunting grounds of Kentucky-- far too many white settlers with far too many long rifles had poured into the land like bees to honey, killing or running off the game that had been so plentiful before-- but they made a successful hunt in the southwest along the great river and brought home an abundance of meat that would help our tribe through the summer and furs that would help in the upcoming winter. Many of our men, including Running Bear, were gone for about two weeks and I missed him greatly during that time.

Each night, I dreamed of him, my spirit reaching out across the distance to touch him. The other young wives in our village, including my older brothers' wives, were having similar thoughts and we whispered and giggled among ourselves about the delights we would visit on our young men when they returned. We shared those delights in some detail and I was surprised to receive several new ideas that I was almost certain would delight me nearly as much as they would Running Bear.

When they returned, I found that I was right; it was a wonderful few days having him home and the nights were even better.

*****

High Summer, 1788

As the summer sun warmed our fields with their corn, squash, and other vegetables, we generally spent part of each day weeding the rows, making sure the nourishment and the moisture in the soil went to our crops rather than to the weeds that would gladly choke them out. I usually worked the fields with the others, but one day I felt ill when we awoke and Running Bear told me to stay home until I felt better.

As the morning progressed, I walked down to the riverbank and knelt on a rock to wash my face, cooling myself and trying to make my stomach behave. The water was clear and cool and I saw a fish swim near, making me wish I'd thought to bring my spear; it would have made for a very good dinner for my Running Bear.

The fish swam lazily by, not realizing how close it had come to being my prize. Splashing my face one more time, I rose and walked up the bank, heading for the fields to do my part.

I was about half way there when I heard a commotion.

Shouting! Screams!

I ran, clutching my hand on the hilt of my knife in assurance that I could face the problem, whatever it was. However, when I reached the edge of the field and looked out over the corn, now nearly waist high, I screamed.

Warriors were attacking my people and it wasn't a battle! With my people generally unarmed, it was a slaughter. One was struck down as was a second. Some of our tribe was running one way, some another.

Another fell in the distance.

I paused for a moment, my eyes searching frantically until I saw Running Bear, using his hoe against another warrior armed with a spear. Running Bear deflected a blow with the handle, but the blade appeared to scratch his arm, a stream of blood flowing down as he deflected yet another blow.

"NO!" I screamed, racing toward him, going to help my man.

He heard me, his eyes flicking my way for just a moment but long enough for his attacker to land another strike, to draw more of Running Bear's precious blood.

"Run, White Doe! Run!" he shouted, striking the man with the hoe's handle, but the man twisted and the blow glanced by before the tip of his spear sliced into Running Bear's side. My man slipped sideways, away from the spearpoint, and brought his hoe around, clipping the attacker square in the knee with the blade, causing him to tumble. Running Bear's knife, the one he'd given my father to prove his love for me, then plunged into the man's chest, killing him.

That fight was over, but there were others going on around us as I saw Running Bear drop to his knees, gripping his side, before falling into the corn. Keeping my eye on the spot, I raced to him, finding him quickly and slapping my hand over his wound as Bird Who Dances taught me years before, trying desperately to stop the flow.

"No, no, no!" I cried. "Stay with me, Running Bear! Please, my love, stay with me."

He tried to raise his hand to touch me, but he was too weak, so I lowered my head and touched his as his precious lifeblood continued to run out in the rich soil despite my best efforts to stop it. His voice rasped as he said, "Love you... sweet Doe... now, run."

His body relaxed then as the Great Spirit took him and I wailed, crying out in agony and anger at those who had done this, but my voice was only of many, all crying out against the evil that had been done.

I rose and looked about, seeing the body of the warrior that Running Bear had killed even as he himself was dying. Moving that way, I looked for the spear, the one that had killed my mate, the one that I would use to take revenge on those who had done this, but I didn't see it as I searched through the standing stalks and the large tangles of wrecked ones where they'd fought, trying desperately to see it.

There! Just paces away where it had been thrown when Running Bear hit the warrior with his hoe. I was almost there when a noise came too close to me. Turning to dodge, something-- a shaft of another spear, I later guessed-- swung through the air and hit my head, knocking me sideways.

Knocking me almost senseless.

I fell into still-standing stalks and then the dirt, face first I think, and then rough hands were grabbing me as I tried to figure out how to resist, to fight them through my daze. My hands were bound in a few heartbeats and a hood was thrown over my head and drawn tight, making me feel as if I was suffocating.

Those hands picked me up and I felt myself being thrown over a shoulder and taken away. "No!" I cried out, trying to resist, struggling, trying to kick, but there was nothing I could do but continue to scream.

*****

I don't know how long we traveled. I'd been carried for a way and then pulled along on foot, tied by rope to my captor or possibly others. I really didn't know which.

I don't know which way we traveled. The hood-- made of leather, I believe-- made it very difficult to breathe, making me constantly feel sick. Once I had to stop to water the earth, but my captor wouldn't remove the hood and, as we started off again, I wasn't even sure if we were going the same way as before.

I thought I heard a child ask for water. I thought I heard a blow.

I know I heard a cry and then silence after that.

For what seemed like hours we went, moving quickly where the terrain allowed it but slowly at times when it didn't. We trudged through streams at times; sometimes across but sometimes within the streambed for a way. I fell several times, gashing my knee on a rock in one fall. The blood trickling down my leg reminded me of that of my sweet Running Bear, now one again with the earth. I cried silently, wanting to join him, with only my determination to kill those who had done this to him keeping me going, while hoping the droplets and an occasional scuff of my toe on the path might give a clue to anyone following to rescue us.

If any of my people had survived.

While knowing that Running Bear was gone and a few others were badly wounded or even dead, I prayed that my parents, my siblings and their spouses and children, and the rest of our people had. I also hoped they might be able to follow our trail and rescue us, but their survival was most important in my mind despite how scared and angry and sick I felt.

Much later, I was shoved to the ground and my mask was removed. It was dark, with only a few stars visible through the leaves of the trees above us. A water skin was placed to my lips and a bit of food was given to me, helping blunt the hunger and the nausea, at least a little. Voices, sounding as if in a circle, told me that children made up the rest of it until someone demanded, "Silence!" It was in our language but sounded harsh, foreign.

It was difficult to see in the darkness but I saw glimpses of warriors moving between us and then tying our feet together, each to their own and then to those next to us. With my arms still behind me and feeling numb, there would be no escape this night, I knew.

As much as I wished it, I knew there would be no revenge either.

*****

For days we traveled in this manner, never knowing where we were or which way we were going. Our captors started releasing our hands for a while after a couple of days, but only long enough for the numbness to fade for a while before they tied us up once more.

I was hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, and with the bag making it so difficult to breathe, I almost constantly felt sick. I was sure the children were as well, but in the brief moments we saw each other at night or early in the morning before the dawn, they seemed somewhat resigned to their fate, knowing that their terrible ordeal would be over when we arrived at our destination, wherever that was, and they were adopted into their new tribe, much as I'd been adopted into our own tribe about twelve earlier, before they were even born.

However, their resignation didn't extend to me. I worked my bonds, twisting, struggling, trying to find a way to escape whenever there was an opportunity, but with numb arms and seemingly clueless fingers as a result, I made no progress as we moved farther and farther from my home.

We'd traveled for about ten or eleven days-- I'd lost count-- when I was separated from the others one evening when we stopped. With my hands bound behind me, I was pushed down to my knees before the bottom of the bag was untied and removed from my head.

To my surprise, it was still daylight and I winced going from the dark stuffiness of the bag to being blinded by light but being able to breathe again. As I pried my eyes open again, there was movement in front of me and I could see a man drop to his knees so his face was just inches from my own.

Seeing the Shawnee warrior Two Dogs' face in front of me, I did two things: I screamed in surprise and anger and then I lunged, butting my head as hard as I could into his nose.

Then I hit the ground from where he cuffed me as he laughed at my pitiful effort.

Jerking me back up, he looked at me, thoroughly amused at my anger and my overwhelming desire to kill him.

"Your men killed Running Bear and took those poor children because you wanted me!" I accused, realizing everything that had happened was because of me. "How could you!"

He continued to smile, a self-satisfied pompous look if there had ever been one and he ran his finger across my cheek, over my chin, and back up the opposite side. My effort to bite him earned me a blow, not as hard as the first but enough for my cheek to sting.

Then, as if nothing had happened, he began to stroke my golden hair, still up in a frayed braid after being untended for some many days. Finally, he pulled the strap of my dress, revealing the white skin below and he licked his lips and nodded before saying something I didn't understand.

I dreaded what he had in mind but I didn't care, with revenge being the only thing on my mind, no matter what it took, no matter what I had to give to gain it. "You won't look so smug when I kill you," I whispered, only to see him nod in reply.

"Except that will never happen," he replied, now speaking in my own language. "And I hope that fire you have now remains in you to warm us each evening that I come to you."

Pushing me back, I shook my head violently and screamed as he did what he wished for the first time.

*****

The days that followed were filled with guilt, anguish, hunger, and a constant sickness at all that had happened and at the thought of what Two Dogs now did to me each night. I plotted constantly on how to kill him and how to escape. The first was important, the second not so much since dying in the attempt meant that I might rejoin Running Bear with the Great Spirit.

Unfortunately, nothing worked but something new gave me hope, gave me a new reason to live. Even before our captors placed the hood over my head one morning, I felt the nausea of recent weeks and I recalled the first time I'd felt it, the morning of the attack. Placing my hand low on my belly during the brief period when we were untied, I realized that though Running Bear was gone, a small part of him might survive, and I prayed for that to be the case.

When Two Dogs took me away that night to do with me as he wished, I submitted meekly, hoping he wouldn't harm me, or more importantly, wouldn't harm Running Bear's child within my womb. I pretended to act resigned to his actions, much as the children were, and he smiled, believing he'd finally beaten me.

*****

A few days later, we came to a Shawnee town with longhouses rather than the village with wigwam-type homes of my people. A large number of people came out to see our arrival, just as our village turned out to see our hunters return, but this time the main interest was the children. Within minutes, all of them were claimed by new parents; their old clothes and anything that reminded them of our tribe were removed and burned. Given new outfits, they looked much like the other children in the town.

Within days, I was unable to recognize any of them.

However, I didn't have it so easy. Two Dogs took me into the longhouse where he'd recently become chief and where some of the members of the raiding party lived. There, I was forced to my knees again like so many times on our long trip, but this time I knelt in front of a Shawnee woman. She was probably ten or twelve winters older than me, about Two Dogs' age, and she was quite pretty, but her face spoke hurt and cruelty when she saw me and she saw the look on Two Dogs' face. She screamed as she struck my cheek with her hand before turning to Two Dogs and giving him a tongue-lashing. To my surprise, he clasped her upper arms and held her, letting his eyes do the talking as he glared at her. Quiet words I couldn't hear were spoken and eventually she nodded, accepting Two Dogs' decision. I would become part of their family, his concubine if not his second wife.

The next morning, the woman I came to know as Falling Waters marched me down to the river, my hands still tied. She flashed a big knife in front of me, making me believe that she would gut me, but instead, she cut off my dress and threw it on a little fire some of the women were using for washing.

Walking around me very slowly, she examined my naked form, growing more and more angry as she did. I feared she would plunge the knife she'd use to remove my dress into my breast and deny me my revenge on Two Dogs, and I became even more sure of it when she kicked the back of my knee just hard enough for me to drop to my knees. She grasped my head, ran her fingers across my throat as if to slash it, and then shifted to cut off my long blonde braid. She kicked me again then, right in the middle of my back, and made me tumble into the river.

The young women watching waded into the shallows where I struggled, pulling me up and then scrubbing me from head to toe as they laughed, cleaning me for the first time in weeks, probably drowning the lice and fleas and whatever else had infested me while almost drowning me in their repeated plungings. My bonds were cut loose so they could wash the rest of me, and when they were done, they pulled me from the water, drying me and brushing my hair, making me feel half-human again as blood pulsed in my arms, aflame like a thousand pins pricking me.

On the bank, I stood naked and proud as I glared at Falling Waters while she glared with equal intensity at me. Then, to my surprise, I heard what I later came to know as a curse word in her language before she stepped to the side and leaned down to pick up a thong-tied bundle that she threw at me. Bending down once more, she rose again, this time throwing a pair of moccasins at me before saying something to the women and marching off.

Untied, the bundle revealed a dress, surprisingly with some decoration making me believe that Two Dogs really was claiming me as a second wife and that Falling Waters wasn't having it. Trying on the dress, the women adjusted it a little to fit better, and then had me put on the moccasins before escorting me back to the longhouse.

Over the next few days, one or another of the women, all from our longhouse, watched me constantly, and Falling Waters sometimes lashed my back or buttocks with a bundle of reeds, but the bonds around my wrists were no more as they forced me to work. I was actually glad to do it to avoid the constant numbness, but my nausea gave me away just days later when Falling Waters, staring at me with great hatred as always, suddenly recognized what I was experiencing.

Though she was barren, having never given birth to a child of her own, she was Two Dogs' wife-- or at least chief wife-- and was the leader of the women in our longhouse. She'd helped with a number of the women over the years, both during the pregnancies and during their births, so she saw me one day and knew that I was pregnant. She took me out with one of the women who spoke a few words of my language and yelled and cried, that I was giving Two Dogs the child that she'd never been able to deliver.

While I knew the child was Running Bear's and not Two Dogs', I pretended otherwise, yelling back at her with equal intensity in my own language and thereby drawing a crowd of Shawnee townspeople who heard our argument. As I suspected, word quickly got back to Two Dogs and my treatment was suddenly changed. While Falling Waters was still the first wife, he made her treat me well since I would be bearing him his first child. I hated myself for the deception but my backside no longer suffered lashes and I felt it was worth it in the end.

Two Dogs still took me, usually every second or third night when he wasn't with Falling Waters, but his attitude changed, being kinder with my treatment and even showing me some fondness during our rutting. I hated myself the first time he succeeded in pushing me over the edge as Running Bear had done, but even though it was pleasurable, I still wanted to stab his knife into his heart.

*****

As time passed, my belly grew and Running Bear's child grew within me, being born at about the end of winter. I believe Falling Waters suspected but she had no proof and, with me picking up more of the language of the Shawnee each week, I was now able to say a little to defend myself and my son.

To my surprise, Two Dogs, who named the boy Pawing Elk after a great elk digging for shoots in the snow, tried to be a good father, loving the boy and appearing to love me as well. When I was healed and he came once more to my bed, his loving was now tender and affectionate.

Still, I looked forward to the time a dagger would find its way into my hand and I would take Two Dogs' life for what he and his band had done to Running Bear and my people. I looked forward to running away with my boy to find them.

*****

Time passed and that opportunity never came, with Pawing Elk's welfare being much more important than my desire for revenge. I became resigned to my fate as I embraced my role as the mother of my little boy. He grew quickly, learning to run almost as soon as he walked, taking after the man he called his father while I tried to instill some of the goodness of Running Bear.

Falling Waters clearly hated Pawing Elk and hated me more, but she was forced to tolerate us by Two Dogs' possessiveness if not actual love. I was in a bad situation but I tried to make the most of it, teaching my son what I could, giving Two Dogs' what he needed while taking his protection, and, to the extent possible, staying away from Two Dogs' real wife, the one who actually loved him and had the great jealousy to prove it.

Some months after Pawing Elk's birth, things became a little strained in our family. Two Dogs wanted another son, so he began pressuring Falling Waters and me to give him one. In that one instance, his first wife and I became something akin to allies, telling him that we could not snap our fingers and make it happen. To my surprise, he became angry at that, taking both of us on the same night, and then storming off on a hunt the next morning with a group of his braves.

For the first time ever, there was at least a degree of empathy between Falling Waters and me the next morning as we watched Two Dogs go. I had absolutely no interest in giving Two Dogs a child and was using every method my mother had taught me to try to prevent it, but I could see the hurt on Falling Waters' face.

She had loved Two Dogs since she was younger than me but she'd never been able to give him what he wanted most. We stood side by side as we watched him depart and our fingers brushed as I held Pawing Elk in my other arm. Perhaps I felt as sorry for her as she felt for herself, but our hands twisted and we were hand-in-hand for a moment and gave each other a little squeeze. I turned to look at her and a comforting smile, to which Falling Waters gave a little nod I took as thanks.

Then she realized what she was doing and with whom she was doing. She threw my hand off and stormed away, the moment gone and forgotten.

*****

By the spring of what I later learned was 1791, little Pawing Elk was two years of age and Two Dogs was becoming more and more disillusioned with our ability to bear him additional children. Storming off yet again one day, he returned home a few weeks later as the trees budded and the earth turned green with another young woman from yet another raid on another tribe.

Having been born just after a great winter snowstorm, her name was Winter Calm and her language was similar to my own so we quickly learned to talk as Two Dogs focused his nightly desire on her, relieving me in a way but making Falling Waters hate her and hate me even more.

Within a few moons, however, as Winter Calm failed to conceive despite almost nightly seedings, Two Dogs slowly came to realize that the problem might not belong to the women but, rather, to himself. When he finally did, he returned to Falling Waters' bed and rarely visited either Winter Calm or me. As much as I disliked Falling Waters for the evil she'd done to me over the years, I felt for her, at least in a way, and was happy that Two Dogs, her true love, was showing his feelings for her once more and he was generally leaving Winter Calm and me alone.

However, around that same time, I came to realize that Pawing Elk was getting bigger and that, even if I escaped, I would never get away while carrying him since he was still too small to escape with me under his own power. To make matters worse, he also saw Two Dogs as his father.

Therefore, I found myself caught between Two Dogs' desires, Falling Waters' hatred, and the needs of my special little man. It became an easy decision when I realized that; Pawing Elk's needs came first, so I reconciled myself to the fact that I would be stuck there for as long as I lived.

On the nights when Pawing Elk was asleep and Two Dogs went to be with Falling Waters or Winter Calm, I would recall my time with Running Bear, trying to remember and relive the moments. Touching myself at just the right spot, I pretended that it was Running Bear visiting me from across the spirit veil, that he was doing once again what he'd sometimes done, and that, as it lifted me and I felt great happiness, that I would be with Running Bear again someday.

*****

The summer of 1791 was hot and dry, with our corn crop being the poorest in years. To make matters worse, the war that our peoples had been fighting with the whites for years came to a head.

Leaving behind some warriors and some of the older men to protect our town and ensure that the last of the crop was brought in, Two Dogs and many of the bravest warriors departed that fall to head southwest to join Blue Jacket, the war chief of all the Shawnee peoples, and the chiefs and braves of many other tribes to shadow and ultimately defeat the white army under the one known as St. Clair, killing many of the palefaces and sending the tiny band of survivors fleeing.

When they returned home a couple of weeks after the battle with captured weapons and assorted loot from the army's abandoned supply wagons, our men were still exultant, sure that they would defeat the whites again, this time with some of their own weapons, and drive them from our lands, if the whites even dared to risk facing them again.

Two Dogs was among the loudest and most boastful. He celebrated the night of their return by taking Falling Waters first, telling her that with the result of the battle, his medicine was stronger than ever, and that surely she could give him a son.

Then he came to me, plowing me harder than ever, making me, to my great surprise, feel better than ever before. I realized as our bodies tangled that I was holding him as he thrust into me, making me want that feeling he was giving me. He collapsed on me when he came, kissing me, and I kissed back, enjoying it but hating myself both for the enjoyment and for the betrayal of my late Running Bear.

Later that night, he went to Winter Calm, making me feel for her but to also admire his stamina. She joined me in my bed after Two Dogs had returned to Falling Waters. I held Winter Calm like a sister and patted her back until her quiet tears finally ceased.

Despite his best efforts, none of us conceived, then or in the weeks that followed, so Two Dogs blamed us all, growing increasingly frustrated, and focusing his attention on hunting to help our people get through the hard winter and his affections only on Falling Waters between the hunts.

Though she was unable to conceive for him, that made Falling Waters happier and that made Winter Calm and me happier in turn.

*****

Summer, 1793

Despite the warriors' claims and everyone's hopes, the defeat of the white St. Clair did not lead to the remaining whites tucking their tails and going home. Instead, they pushed forward in ever-increasing numbers and our men would periodically journey toward the white settlements far to the south to raid and pillage, trying to drive them away.

Traders from the north, from the land across the great lake, had come to our town from time to time over the years. Though white themselves, they were from the Great White King Across the Sea and they were enemies of the white invaders. They brought shot and powder to make the captured rifles usable and to help us prepare for war, so instead of St. Clair's defeat bringing the peace we wanted, the cloud of war became darker still.

Word came periodically that the new white general, the Mad Wayne, was preparing a new army, a legion, to fight the tribes, and in the spring of 1793, we heard that he had moved his force by huge, flat-bottomed boats down the great river to a place they called Fort Washington after their great chief. As soon as our crops were planted, our warriors prepared themselves and set off to the southwest to stop the whites from advancing any further.

The men had been gone about two weeks when another group of traders came from the North to trade for our furs. As was always the case, Falling Waters kept me in the longhouse, hiding my not-quite summer-tanned skin and all-too-blonde hair from outsiders. Since Pawing Elk was Two Dogs' son, she took him with her and I was left to stew in the longhouse, doing my work and letting my frustration get the better of me until the others returned and Pawing Elk came running into my arms to give me a big hug and tell me all about the trading and the visitors and so much more. Winter Calm could barely keep from smiling as the little boy went on and I believe I even saw a little smile crack Falling Waters' face.

The traders departed the next morning, as usual, and all seemed normal for several days until Winter Calm coughed and complained of not feeling well. I had her lie down and did her work for her, hoping she would feel better the next morning.

I awoke during the night to hear her coughing again so I rose to see Falling Waters lighting a tallow lamp.

"White Doe, I'm worried about Winter Calm. Her cough may make others ill and it's definitely keeping others awake. Let's move her to the storehouse; you'll stay there with her to help.

I fetched a travois and dragged it into the longhouse, loading Winter Calm and her bedding onto it. I was surprised when Falling Waters helped me drag the laden sledge back out of the longhouse, but she left me to drag it the rest of the way to the hut by myself.

"The bitch only wanted my sister-wife gone to avoid getting sick herself," I muttered as I pulled Winter Calm along.

I returned a short time later and loaded the travois again, this time taking some food, a waterskin, a pot, and some cloth that I would use to cool Winter, plus my own bedding. Though bulky even when tied down, it was much lighter than the first trip.

Finally, I made a third trip, this time to get Pawing Elk and his things. He was partially awake for the trip but was back asleep in moments once I shifted him off the travois at the far side of the little hut from Winter Calm. After bathing Winter with a cool, wet cloth and making sure she was comfortable, I lay down beside my little man and was asleep in moments.

I slept late the next morning but was awoken by coughing, both from Winter Calm and Pawing Elk. Putting the back of my hand against my boy's head, I cringed in fear to learn how hot he was; a moment later, I found that Winter Calm was the same way.

I rushed to the river with the clay pot and filled it with water; the water skin was far too small. I split the water between them, sprinkling it over them to cool them. Another sprint down to the riverbank got me more, but I realized it wasn't enough as I emptied it over them again. Rather than making another trip with the little pot, I headed to the longhouse to get a bigger one.

Entering, I heard coughing, not from one or two but from many. I grabbed a big pot and was about to go when I heard Falling Waters.

"White Doe, I need help. Bring water."

I quickly drenched her with what little water remained in the big pot. "I'll go get more," I said, seeing how sick and miserable she looked. Though I didn't like the woman because of the way she'd treated me, I still felt bad for her.

But not bad enough to take the first pot of water her way. No, that went to the hut where she'd exiled us, trying to avoid getting sick herself only to find it was too late. I bathed Winter and Pawing Elk in the cool water and made them drink a little before heading back to the river for more to take inside.

"What took you so long?" demanded Falling Waters, burning with fever.

"It didn't," I lied. "You're hot and sick and it just felt like it."

"Oh. Thank you," she breathed, showing true appreciation for probably the first time ever.

Knowing that I would probably be sick at any time, I spent the rest of the day going back and forth between the longhouse, the river, and the storehouse, trying to help as many people as I could. There was no time to prepare food, so I broke into our longhouse's store of pemmican and jerky and gave some to those who could eat it, wondering if others would even make it until morning. As the sun set that evening after making everyone as comfortable as I could, I ate a bit of the food and sank down into an exhausted sleep.

*****

I'm not sure if it was two days or three before Winter Calm died, the fever having burned her up and dried her out despite my efforts. I cried and cried as I tried to save her, to save Pawing Elk, and, yes, even Falling Waters and others in the longhouse.

Pawing Elk was hot and limp, his coughs barely audible as they shook his body. As hard as I tried, there was little I could do, and he gave up his spirit later that evening.

I have no idea how long I cried, the last vestige of Running Bear now taken from me.

In the longhouse, Falling Waters was very sick but she was still somewhat alert though also quite confused, sometimes demanding something of me and sometimes thanking me in practically the same breath. Her demands finally ended that evening when she fell asleep.

Doing what I could for a few others but too exhausted to make another trip to the river, I was about to leave for the storehouse when I searched and found a roll of leather thongs, a knife, and hand axe I would need the next morning. Reaching the storage house, I made sure both Pawing Elk and Winter Calm were well covered before collapsing on my pallet to cry again until sleep took me.

*****

Morning came and I expected to be sick like the others, but my body wasn't hot and I had no cough. Therefore, I unwrapped the now dried corn husks from a wafer of pemmican and drank some water before starting my unwanted task.

Situating Winter Calm on her bedding, I looked at the body of the woman I'd come to know as a sister. I cleaned her up as well as I could, straightened her clothes and hair, and carefully wrapped the bedding about her as a burial shroud before tying it off with the thongs.

I followed the same process with Pawing Elk, my precious boy, but struggled, fighting tears the whole time. I also added a bit of the paint he loved on his face and cut off a hand-width of my golden braid which I tied around his neck with a thong as a medallion. With that, he might have a bit of my presence in the afterlife and it might allow Running Bear, his true father, to recognize him as our son if their paths ever crossed. When everything was ready, I bound him in the shroud like Winter Calm.

Shawnee practice was to place the dead in stone-lined graves, but I had no grave dug and no quarried stone to line it, so I used a method similar to that of my adopted people. I dragged Winter Calm there on the travois, a few of the Shawnee town's hungry dogs trailing along with me being exceedingly unhelpful as they begged for food while refusing to help pull the sledge. Already tired from that, I struggled for quite some time digging a shallow grave on a little bluff overlooking the river, just north and downstream of the town, and then placed Winter Calm in it before luring the dogs back to the village with some jerky strips.

With Pawing Elk being smaller compared to Winter Calm, it was easier to drag him and a few of their items, a couple of small pemmican cakes and a few strips of jerky that I hoped might aid and comfort them on their journey to the afterlife. Back at the grave once more, I placed my boy next to my sister-wife and added their items around them before quietly singing the death song of my people for them, tears streaming the whole time as I sang.

Once their bodies were covered with earth, I carried stones from along the riverside and piled them atop the grave to protect them from beasts but also as a cairn so they would be remembered. Trip after trip I made up and down the bluff carrying stones and piling them up until I was so exhausted that I could do no more. I finally collapsed by the grave and cried again until I went to sleep, expecting the fever to visit and possibly even take me by morning.

But I woke up the next morning after all, my body sore from sleeping on the uneven ground but not racked by fever or consumed by coughing. Drinking water from the river and eating the last of the pemmican cake in my pouch, I realized something: while I had given up on my plans to escape long before, there was now nothing keeping me there.

My son? Dead.

My sister-wife? Dead.

Falling Waters, my chief torturer? Ill, possibly dead, and, either way, unable to torture or chase me if I escaped.

And Two Dogs, my unwanted husband-master? Away at war, safe from my thirst from revenge for what he had done to my family.

That final thought was what convinced me. Was revenge important enough to keep me there? Would Running Bear want me to stay and risk never being able to escape for some small chance that I might be able to hurt or possibly even kill Two Dogs someday?

"Run!" whispered Running Bear in my ear. That was the last word he ever said to me, just as he died, so it was like an echo as I remembered it.

"Run!"

I would follow his direction, I decided, but I didn't know where to run. While I didn't know where my people's village was, I had determined over the years that it was somewhere to the west or southwest, somewhere near where Two Dogs and the Shawnee braves had gone to engage with the Mad General Wayne. With the war raging, I was more likely to encounter him or other braves who would capture or even take me than to find my people.

That turned my mind to my other people, my birth family, who lived somewhere to the south, below the great river. Scarred Turtle had told me when I became an adult that I might still have a few members left of my family.

"When we passed by your home, the Saawanwa were trying to set it afire, but the heavy logs of the walls were too green, having been cut just days or weeks earlier, and only the furnishings inside were starting to burn. Seeing us, they probably believed we were a group of whites coming to the aid of those inside, so they fled.

"We saw the bodies-- I'm sorry, White Doe-- two men, a woman, and a young boy of probably ten to twelve winters just outside the door. All were dead and there was nothing we could do so we looked for anything valuable we might take before the little fires spread to the roof. We heard knocking and screaming from below-- that was you, of course, so we chopped open the floor and pulled you out before we fled like the Saawanwa."

"You said a boy, Father. I had four brothers."

"Then you may still have three," he replied. "Some may have gone for help or may have escaped, or they may have been killed outside, just beyond where we went. We really don't know, but it may be possible that some of your family survived."

Brothers, I thought. Based on the approximate ages of the dead, it must have been the older boys that survived, though as hard as I tried, I couldn't remember their names. If they still survived, perhaps they would remember me. Maybe, just maybe, they would take pity on me and give me shelter while I determined how to find my other family.

South, I decided. I would go south.

*****

My mind made up, I knew I'd need some supplies for the journey so I returned to the longhouse only to run into a problem. If I were to take any of my clothes or any of my few personal possessions, it would be obvious that I'd fled. I needed to disappear, as if I'd died like Winter Calm, Pawing Elk, and others in the longhouse.

Seeing a few others up and moving about despite their own coughing, I came up with a plan, a very poor one, but all I had before one of them saw me.

"White Dove, where have you been? We need water."

"Burying my son and my sister," I said, adding a cough similar to the woman's. "I'll--" cough cough-- "get water."

For the next few hours, I got water, carrying pot after pot from the river to our longhouse, helping those I could with water and stored food, forcing frequent coughs as I did. Each trip, I added a little more food in my pouch, sneaking it out of the longhouse and depositing it in a little stash down by the river. My body shook with my coughs from time to time, and I even dropped a waterpot, breaking it into pieces, forcing me to clean up all of the shards and get another pot.

I could only hope that my coughs and my performance looked convincing to anyone who might see them.

At some point that afternoon, I collapsed on my pallet in the storehouse, desperate for some rest, adding some more coughs before dozing off. I awoke shortly before sunset and made two more trips to the river for water. My coughing sounded bad and I wove, as if dazed, when I walked.

On my last trip, I was careful to stay far from Falling Waters; she'd been delirious earlier, but she seemed cooler the last time I'd checked on her and she'd been able to drink some water. As much as I disliked the woman for all she'd done to me, I knew she'd been fighting to keep her man, the man I never wanted, so I'd tried to help her. This time, I was done and she was on her own. Gathering the last few things I could, I picked up the water pot and walked out for the last time.

Coughing and weaving as I walked like I was as delirious as Falling Waters had been, I hid the pot in the bushes with the rest of my little stash, and pulled out some larger pieces of the broken pot from earlier in the evening that I hadn't pitched on the trash heap.

Weaving on my way down to the bank I continued coughing, even worse than before. With one final series of coughs, my foot slipped, gashing the rocky sand, and the pottery shards went flying into the water near the edge as I collapsed, falling sideways into the river to be carried downstream.

*****

I floated a short way, waiting to hear a cry, worried that I might have been seen by a potential rescuer, but even more worried that I might not have been. If the Shawnee thought I'd been sick and fell in the river to be swept downstream to the great lake to the north, they wouldn't be as likely to send a search party going upstream to the south to look for me.

With my face barely above the water in the dim twilight, I stopped myself about 30 or 40 paces downstream and held there, waiting to see if anyone cried out or if anyone came running. The water felt quite cold, making me want to cut short my time there, but I held and endured it, knowing that it wasn't cold enough for me to catch a shiver and die from it, assuming the cough and fever didn't get me.

As I expected, a couple of late visitors came to the river to collect water, but no one saw me, making me suspect no one knew to look. After the last departed and it was quite dark, I moved and began trudging upstream, again, just keeping my face above the water.

I passed the spot where I'd fallen in and went several paces further upstream, toward the end of the little beach where we did much of our work. Coming up out of the water, slowly and quietly but staying down low, now trying desperately to avoid being seen, I tried to shed as much water as I could right after stepping out of the water, hoping it would leave no sign by morning.

With water still dripping but not pouring off me, I moved to the bush and obtained the pot I'd hidden there along with the foodstuffs I'd taken, plus the waterskin, the remaining leather thongs, and the knife and hand axe I'd taken earlier. The last item was Winter Calm's winter boots; with a long journey ahead, I knew they'd come in handy, despite being hot, and anyone who noticed they were missing would probably think I'd buried them with her.

I'd been careful to bring nothing of my own other than what I wore so no one would suspect that I'd fled rather than having gotten sick and fallen in the river.

With everything in the pot, I walked slowly back to the river from the way I'd come, trying not to disturb the sand or the pebbles. Wading back into the river in the darkness, I floated, allowing the water to carry me downstream once more, only this time, with the pot floating in the stream and tied to my waist, floated along but kicking and pulling toward the opposite shore, a little at a time.

*****

On the opposite bank, I emerged carrying the pot. A bit of water had splashed in despite my efforts, causing me to worry about the pemmican, which would quickly spoil if soaked, but I hoped the leather wrap and the corn husks around the individual wafers had protected it. It was too dark to see and I was in too big a hurry so I didn't bother trying to check.

In a matter of moments, everything from the pot, including the thong I'd used to keep it with me, was on my belt or in my pouch, and I filled the skin with water. Placing the pot in the water, I used the point of my knife to spin around a few times to drill a hole as with an awl and then pushed the pot out into the river as it began to fill. I hoped it would sink to the bottom, never to be seen again, to further reinforce the tale of the sick woman who'd died and fallen into the river.

Moving carefully at first and getting into the woods away from the river without leaving tracks, I looked to the sky to get my bearings and picked the stars I needed to follow.

Then I took my sweet Running Bear's advice: I ran.

*****

It's hard running in the woods, across rough ground and through tangles. It's even harder running in the woods in the darkness.

With my eyes well-adjusted to the darkness, I made decent time, running when I could but walking much more of the time, worried all the way.

Would anyone chase me?

Would it matter if they did, or would the illness run me down first?

With Two Dogs being away, would anyone even care that I was gone?

I traveled for the rest of that night, all the next day, and then for part of the next night, going east for a while and then turning south as the terrain became rougher and the hills became taller. Exhausted, I collapsed in the midst of a thicket and slept until well into the next night.

The packets of pemmican in the bottom of the pot had gotten wet so I ate them first; mushy, they tasted bad and texture was worse, but they and a couple strips of venison jerky gave me strength to continue on my journey. Day after day and night after night I traveled, going until I was exhausted again, my pouch becoming ever lighter as my supplies were exhausted, too.

After the fifth or sixth day, I started traveling only by day to make better time, so I set snares each evening in hopes of catching a rabbit or other small creature. Once I found a good track and caught one, but my other snares were empty and I had to remove them to avoid leaving signs to any pursuers. I thanked the rabbit for his sacrifice, eating the meat, saving some of the bones for needles or awls, and saving and cleaning the gut as a string in case I needed to make a bow.

One evening when I came to a creek, I used my hand axe and knife to fashion a barbed spear, with the leather thong I'd used on the pot to secure it to my wrist to make sure it didn't float away. Though I tried several times, I got nothing that evening, but had more luck with a nice perch the next morning.

As the days passed and I grew hungrier, I gave more consideration to making a little bow to use for small game but I knew it would take too long to fashion the bow and enough arrows to be meaningful. It would also be too obvious to anyone who might come upon signs if I didn't hide everything perfectly, so I kept moving, going further and further south as the days passed.

A storm came, making me miserable, and the streams rose, making crossings more difficult. Around the eighth or ninth day, a stream moving to the southwest was particularly large and fast, so I followed it for a day as it turned more to the west. Fearing it would continue turning and go north and I would have to backtrack, I was glad to see it start going down a bit so I decided to try to cross the next morning.

It was down further by morning as I'd hoped. The pemmican was gone by that point and I only had a little part of another fish left. Eating the fish for breakfast, I placed everything else in my pouch and bound it tightly with thongs. Knowing that I could replace anything in the pouch given enough time but that losing the hand axe and the knife would likely mean death, I strapped the hand axe to my lower leg, and secured the knife's hilt to its sheath at my belt.

As ready as I could be and praying that Running Bear would continue watching over me, I waded into the water with my fishing spear in my hand and went with the flow. The spear had to be abandoned in moments; I needed both hands to swim for the opposite bank as I was swept downstream much more quickly than I'd expected.

I'm not sure how long it took to cross the river, or how far I was swept downstream, but, completely exhausted, I finally reached the opposite shore and climbed out onto a rocky shelf that was somewhat above the normal river level, coughing for real this time, and retching trying to get all of the water from my mouth, nose, and lungs.

Glancing ahead, I saw the forest just a few paces away but I saw no danger in the area and I was too tired to reach it anyway, so I rolled over on my back to rest and to look up at the sky so I could figure out how long I had had before nightfall.

However, as I rolled over, I froze, hearing a rattle. A rattlesnake was near, far too near, but I couldn't see it and didn't feel it against me. Being perfectly still while being scared half to death, I listened, trying to determine the snake's position. Finally being sure I knew the direction if not the exact distance, I steeled myself and rolled away quickly, drawing myself up and jerking the axe out of its bindings on my leg.

As I suspected, the snake was lunging, so I swung the axe in front of me like a club, connecting with it on the flat of the head, sending it sprawling. Correcting the grip in my hand, I brought it around and down, striking the rattler near the center of its body, cutting it in two and throwing a spark off the rock. The headed-part of the beast still tried to get me but it could no longer lunge like before, so I used the axe to pin it to the rock and my knife to cut off the head.

While it wasn't what I'd prefer, I'd have food for the next few days.

Gutting the snake and cutting it in strips on a rock near the water's edge, I tossed the head and the entrails in the water, and then splashed more water to try to remove all signs of what had happened. While I thought I'd lost any possible pursuers, there was still a chance that someone from the Shawnee town or someone altogether different might pick up my trail and start following me.

*****

With my moccasins becoming worn all over and very thin on bottom, I switched to Winter Calm's winter boots. They were wet from the river crossing and hot in the summer heat, so I cut out part of the fur lining to try to make them cooler. That didn't help much, but they provided better protection across the rough terrain as I continued south so I wore them despite the discomfort.

When the rattler was gone, I grew hungry once more. The rabbits on the south side of the river seemed to be even more wary of my snares than their cousins on the north side, so hunger gnawed at me, finally forcing me to stop to make a bow and some arrows. I found and collected a few feathers along the way that I thought might work as fletchings, but I had no luck finding flint or anything else with which to head them.

My father had taught me to make a bow and he and my big brothers had taught me how to use it, but this was crude beyond the usual standards and my arrows were even worse. To my surprise, it still allowed me to get a squirrel and, the next day, a mink. The second was an unpleasant experience, making me wonder if it might not have been better to starve, but it kept me going.

Days later, the rabbits, the squirrels, and even the minks seemed to be onto me, and the birds were staying out of my range too. Though I crossed a creek from time to time, there were no fish visible, so my replacement spear gained me as little as my bow. It had been so long that I no longer worried about the fever and the cough, but starvation began to feel more and more like a possibility.

I think it was the sixteenth or seventeenth day when I saw the deer in the distance. I wasn't sure if my bow and one of my arrows could take it but I was so hungry I knew I had to try. I spent the next few hours stalking it, trying to get close enough to take a shot with my crude bow so that I might have a chance. It would have to be an accurate shot, I knew, and I'd probably have to chase it down quickly, otherwise I would only wound it and the creature would run away either to survive to another day or to fall prey to another hunter of some type or another.

I was within a few yards and had my bow drawn, the arrow ready to fly, when a twig snapped.

What made it scary was the snap didn't come from me.

The deer was scared, too, and it darted but I didn't have time to follow for my bow was swinging in the direction of the snap. My bow and my arrow, as bad as they were, were my first line of defense against whatever made the sound.

I stopped turning and lowered my arrow when I saw a man not ten paces away. To my surprise and fright, the man had a rifle in his hands and it was pointed at me. The man was fully dressed and, from what I could tell, appeared white.

Though I hadn't spoken the language in years, I forced out, "No! Englasche!"

The rifle didn't waver, still pointed directly at me and I knew, based on what I'd seen from Two Dogs and others in the tribe, that I was about to die. Again, I tried to call out, "Please. Englasche."

A second man, one I hadn't seen, then stepped out from behind a tree, placed his hand on the gunbarrel, pushing it down and away from me. "Hold on Rhett," he said, speaking words that sounded both strange and familiar to me. Stepping closer, he looked at me.

"Shawnee?" he demanded before seeing my eyes and looking closer. "Rhett! Blue eyes! And look at her hair. It's short and in an Indian braid like the rags she's wearing, but it's blonde. This woman's as 'Merican as we are."

"I. Am. Englasche," I repeated, nodding.

"English? Is that what you're saying?"

"English! I am English," I said once more, forcing out the words while nodding furiously, the correct word coming back to me from so many years before.

The man smiled. "Well, we're 'Mericans and everything round here's 'Merican, though the Shawnee don't seem to agree. Have they been holding you?"

I nodded again. "Saawanwa, many winters. Now, I escape. I go home."

"Where's home?" asked the second man, the one called Rhett with the rifle.

Due to the way the Shawnee had taken me and forced me to walk, I honestly didn't know where my old village was or how to get there, but deep within my memory I recalled a word associated with my birth parents. Taking a breath, I tried to say it. "Kane-tuck."

"Shit, Aaron! You're right. This girl ain't English. She's as 'Merican as we are. She's from Kanetucky like us!"

*****

Though they didn't have it in abundance, the men known as Aaron Phipps and Rhett Harmon had food and they shared it with me, Aaron gladly and Rhett with reluctance. Aaron also shared a little about them, though I felt Rhett's wariness, reluctant to accept me at all. The two men had words, a quiet argument from what I could tell, but Aaron invited me along and I traveled with them for several days, teaching them some Shawnee words along the way, as well as some of my own tongue.

Aaron quickly realized that I was trying to remember or maybe even relearn the English language, so he soon became much more careful with his speech. Suddenly, we were "Americans" rather than "'Mericans" like before, and he helped me with words, their pronunciations, and their meanings at times.

Rhett frowned at his friend trying to look "educated," but Aaron smiled at me when Rhett wasn't watching, and he kept trying. English came back to me quickly despite not having used it in so long, though Rhett rolled his eyes when I kept asking what words meant and he couldn't seem to come up with the meaning.

They told me little about themselves at first, but they were clearly friends and trusted each other with their lives despite their disagreement over me. They reminded me of Winter Calm and me, the two of us against the world, so I told them more of my story, too, of how I'd been rescued and grown up in the west before my life was turned upside down a second time.

Rhett looked skeptical but Aaron nodded, appearing to believe me.

"Rhett, you may not have met any until now but you know there've been stories of children and even adults being taken away by Indians over the years," he said. "What's the chance that you're going to meet a near-starved white woman in the middle of the wilderness? And what would, ahem, the boss say if we left her here? Think about it: a really pretty white woman dressed in tattered Shawnee clothes that are practically falling off her unless there's at least a little truth to her tale?"

I blushed at his compliment but I became more self-conscious about the state of my dress. With all the time I'd spent in the water in it, it was in really bad shape with several of the seams coming apart, so I decided to try to repair it when we stopped that evening.

Telling them that I was stepping into the woods, I went a short distance and tried to tighten the thin leather strips that laced it together, but I quickly realized how difficult that was with it on so I pulled it over my head and hung it on a tree limb so I could do my work.

It was tedious work, pulling the seemingly always wet leather thongs bit by bit through the laces, tying them off periodically with some of the last of the thongs I'd taken from the longhouse. As the sun set, it became more difficult to see--

"Oh, excuse me," said Aaron, sounding quite embarrassed. I looked back to see that he was staring away from me, probably right after seeing me standing stark naked except for my boots.

"I was, ah, worried. I'm going back, so call out if you need anything."

I watched him go, expecting him to look back, to take a peek at me as I know my Running Bear would have, but to my surprise, he kept his face turned away to disappear into the little clearance beyond. That made me frustrated, in a way, that my form was so unappealing to him, making me wonder if I might ever be able to attract a good man if I wished to someday.

With it getting too dark to continue, I tied off the last leather strip and pulled the dress back over my head. With the gaps gone, it was a bit more form-fitting, but the remaining repairs would have to wait until the next night.

I'd been wary of the men, particularly at first, but they were kind to me and did nothing to make me doubt them. Aaron even whispered an apology about the "accident in the woods" and he seemed to be careful about not looking at me too closely, which frustrated me even further. However, he would sometimes talk to me more when we were by ourselves. I could see his compassion when I told him more about Running Bear and Pawing Elk, and his anger when I told him of Two Dogs and Falling Waters.

"That Two Dogs sounds familiar," he said, "but I'm not sure it's the same person. Whichever, Rhett and I will do our best to keep you from having to go back to them."

"Thank you," I said, giving him a smile before asking, "Can you tell me about your family?"

"Well, you've met my cousin, Rhett. Our moms were sisters from the town of Baltimore...."

Aaron had a large family that might have made Running Bear happy and he enjoyed telling me all about them. When he ran out of those tales, he started telling me other tales, some that were rather unbelievable from my perspective but he assured me they were true. That some wore a second set of eyes to help them see sounded sickening, but that others were able to harness time and carry it in their pockets was one that astounded and confused me. He drew a picture in the dirt and I recognized some of the numbers on the thing he called a face that looked nothing like a face to me.

After that, he spent some time each evening when we stopped scratching letters and numbers on the ground, teaching me like my mother had done so long ago. I recognized a few letters and some of the numbers, but others seemed alien to me, causing Aaron to be patient as he taught me. Rhett looked interested, too, quietly reciting letters with me and being more accepting of me toward the end when he realized I wasn't going to try to kill him in his sleep.

*****

Our trust deepened toward the end of our fifth day together. We were traveling single file down a game trail with Rhett in front, me in the middle, and Aaron in back when Rhett suddenly froze, holding up a single fist.

I stopped, too, and made a fist like Rhett. I didn't look back but didn't hear Aaron move either. I thought of the snapping twig that had alerted me to their presence originally and hoped they would be more careful this time if Rhett was correct and real danger lay ahead.

Moments later, I heard a voice and then others, Shawnee voices; they were stopped, just beyond the trees ahead. If one were to look up the narrow track, there was no way they couldn't see us and we'd be in the fight of our lives.

I wasn't sure what to do, but then Rhett started moving his thumb, as if pointing, back up the trail. Hoping he knew what he was doing and that he would be very, very quiet in doing it, I moved my thumb the same way for Aaron to see.

Ten paces we backed up, quiet as could be and careful to disturb nothing that might give away our presence. Rhett was much more skilled than I'd expected, always watching forward, his long rifle at the ready in case they discovered us, but looking down and behind him before taking the next, slow, steady step.

After that, he raised a single finger and gave a little wave. I did the same once again, and then turned back, to see Aaron turning away as well so we could move away more quickly. About two hundred silent paces down the path, Aaron spotted something he liked so he pointed toward it and led us that way until we finally found a place to camp, well away from the Shawnee.

We maintained silence that evening, with me wondering the whole time if I was being tracked by Two Dogs or someone else from our town, or running into the Shawnee was just random bad luck. Either way, it made me think of my situation; I could not-- no, I would not go back, even if it meant resorting to my knife or some other drastic measure. While I wanted to live and find my family, both parts of it, Running Bear and Pawing Elk awaited me on the other side of the veil if all else failed. I settled into a troubled sleep.

I awoke, startled, during the night, a terrible dream with Two Dogs catching me once more, I started to try to throw off his hands but the hands and the shushing sounds belonged to Rhett and Aaron, trying to quieten me, to keep me from alerting everyone for miles around.

When I was awake and calmed, Rhett reached out and squeezed my hand, giving me a nod, showing that he felt for me even if he didn't fully trust me.

*****

In the end, I think we all trusted each other, and I began to wonder what would happen to me when our paths parted.

In the back of my mind, I also wondered what would happen to Aaron.

We traveled for two more days, seeing no more Shawnee (or anyone else for that matter), and traveling alongside what Aaron said was the Ohio River for the last day before coming to a white settlement known as Marietta. It consisted of a big stockade around the town with blockhouses in the walls and a total of only three or four hundred settlers, many of whom had retreated from farms up the Muskingum River following Indian raids, including, in particular, the massacre of settlers at Big Bottom, about 2-1/2 years before.

Because of these raids, some of which I believed Two Dogs had participated in and been so proud, there was great enmity against the natives so people gave me strange looks as Aaron walked me through the town. He'd had me take my hair out of its usual braid so it practically glittered in the sunlight. A little boy, probably no older than I'd been when I'd first been taken, came running up and pulled my hand, causing me to bend down to see what he wanted. His eyes widened when they looked into mine and he went running away, shouting, "She's got blue eyes! She's got blue eyes!"

Some older boys off to the side snickered; based on what I heard later, they'd put him up to it with some wild tale about "Blue-eyed Injuns."

It was the adults who were more trouble, though. Two men stepped out in front of us as we walked through town, just after arriving.

"What's that thing doing here?" demanded one.

"We don't need no stinkin' Injuns here, blue-eyed or not. Bad enough that they kill us out in our homes and our fields, but bringing 'em into town so they can kill us here ain't smart. You need to get that bitch--"

The man didn't get any further. Aaron slammed the muzzle of his long rifle into the man's gut and then brought it around like a club to hit his knee, causing him to crumple to the ground. The other man reacted but Aaron had a pistol pulled from his belt and pointed at him before he could do anything.

"You need to stay out of this," he said forcefully. The man raised his hands by his shoulders and backed up a few steps before turning and running away. Turning back to the man on the ground who was trying to get up, Aaron added, "And you have insulted my woman--"

My head swiveled toward him. Aaron had done nothing, had said nothing, to make me think he was interested in me, even looking away when he had a chance to see me, and I didn't think, other than thanking him and Rhett for rescuing and teaching me, that I'd done anything to imply that I wished to be his woman--

"--so you're going to either apologize to her or you're going to pay. Now!"

--though I must admit I'd begun to question it after being with him for eight days, through danger and hardship. He and Rhett were my heroes for rescuing me, so maybe what I was feeling was appreciation to him-- them? I didn't know.

"I didn't know! I didn't know!" gurgled the man, mirroring my own thoughts while still holding his stomach and unable to rise due to his injured knee. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Not to me, idiot. To her. A real apology. She's waiting."

Or maybe, I thought, maybe Aaron really doesn't care about me like that. Maybe he was pretending to be possessive to keep something bad like this from happening to me when he wasn't around?

The man had struggled to his knees, the injured knee up and the other down on the ground carrying his weight. "I'm sorry for insulting you," started the man, but Aaron interrupted him again.

"Speak to her like she's a lady," he demanded.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry for insulting you. I didn't realize you were with him, and it won't happen again. Please forgive me."

I looked at the man, almost feeling sorry for him. He'd gone from being so cruel and so sure of himself in just moments to being forced to say something I didn't believe for a moment that he truly meant.

However, I wanted it to be over so I nodded. "Thank you for your understanding and for your apology. I forgive you." I started to turn but stopped and added, "Now, please go," hoping that Aaron, who was looking as skeptical about the apology as I felt, wouldn't start working him over to try to get something more truthful out of the man's mouth.

Still bent over, the man limped away as quickly as he could and I turned back to Aaron and looped my hand around his elbow. "Thank you," I whispered.

He only nodded, though I thought I saw a hint of a smile as we continued walking toward a building at the end of a street.

Inside, we found a couple of families who'd just recently moved back into town due to the dangers up the Muskingum River. Though there was no permanent pastor in the town, the building had been built with the intent for it to be a church when a circuit minister came to town, but it was currently being used as a refuge for families like these. Considering the troubles they'd had, I wasn't surprised when they looked at me warily, not having been privy to the happening just down the street just minutes earlier.

"Is Mrs. Shuyler around?" asked Aaron.

"In back," said one of the men, staring at me.

"Eliza, let's find her." He said my name aloud where all could hear, probably reinforcing what my blonde hair and blue eyes should have told them, that I really wasn't an Indian by birth.

Aaron led me to the back room, which had been set up as a kitchen with a large fireplace with food preparation tables, and storage for foodstuffs and supplies. Aaron called out, "Hello, Mrs. Shuyler, as he knocked on the door to the room and then led me inside.

She was a short, stout woman with her graying hair in a bun on top of her head. She looked at Aaron first and then saw me, running her eyes up and down my gaunt frame.

"Aaron Phipps! Good Lord, young man! What have you brought this time? A wanna-be Indian or a scarecrow? Girl, has he been starving you?"

She sat me at the end of the preparation table with a big bowl of stew and the biggest chunk of bread that I'd ever seen. "Eat girl, slowly! If you don't, it will come up a lot faster than it went down! Now, Aaron, explain."

Mrs. Schuyler had come from what Aaron later told me was a place called Pennsylvania and that she had a Pennsylvania Dutch accent. He spent the next few minutes telling her about me and my travels and travails.

"Do you know of anyone who's been taken from Kentucky? Based on what I've learned, it was probably about sixteen or seventeen years ago."

"Aaron, there were lots of people taken from Kentucky in the early years, though no one knows how many were taken away and how many were just taken somewhere else to be killed. Oh, so sorry, dear," she quickly added when she caught my expression and realized I was listening. Her voice was a whisper after that, until she finally spoke up. "Well, you saw the families outside. She sure can't stay here."

"Then where can she stay, Mrs. Schuyler?" he asked, arching a brow, hinting I think.

"Well... If she'll promise to be good, wear real clothes rather than that awful tent, and work hard, I suppose she can stay with me for a while. It's not a real room but there's a little spot in my attic where she can lie down to sleep, and I'll clothe her and give her food for her work. I warn you though, both of you, if she acts up, she's out. I won't put up with immoral activity in my house."

"Thank you, ma'am; I'm sure she understands that and that she'll be fine. I have to go away for a while, but I'll check back in with you and her when I return."

"You do that, Aaron Phipps, and may God and that long rifle go with you."

I was surprised when he kissed her forehead and then took me by the arm, leading me over to the corner of the kitchen. "Eliza, I think you heard: I have to go away and I'm not sure how long I'll be gone, but it's important or I wouldn't do it. You stay here with Mrs. Schuyler, be a good girl, and, most important, stay in town. No matter how much you want to, don't go outside the stockade. There've been reports of Indian scouts everywhere-- hell, they're peeking over the top of the stockade walls according to some people-- but they'd love to steal you back if you go outside and make it easy for them. Don't. Please, Eliza, don't."

Something in the way he said the last few words made me look at him differently. "Aaron, despite what you told the guy outside and despite the way you sounded just now, you know I'm not your woman. You don't need to--"

His finger pressed to my lips, quietening me. "I know that, Eliza. I also think you know why I said that to that ass at the time, right?"

"I think so."

"Good. Now, I'll qualify that I know you're not my woman yet, but I hope you'll give me a chance when I return to see if I can change that."

In a way, his cockiness reminded me of Running Bear, but that thought caused my eyes to fall and head to bow as a wave of sadness swept through me. I wondered if I could let go of the memories of my Running Bear and of Pawing Elk, our precious son he never knew. I wondered if I could let Aaron Phipps in; I also wondered if I would really ever want to.

Forcing myself to look up at him, I whispered, "I can't promise that, Aaron, but we'll see when you return."

"Eliza, that's all I can ask. Stay safe, girl."

He surprised me by leaning in then and giving me a kiss on the forehead just like he'd done with Mrs. Schuyler a few minutes earlier, and then he was heading out the door and was gone.

*****

Mrs. Schuyler helped me as she said, giving me a new "white-people" outfit in place of the "tent" and feeding me while I helped her. She even trimmed my hair to make it more even and helped me put it up in a bun so I looked less "Indian-like," and let me sleep in her attic, though in the heat, I wasn't sure if she wasn't trying to kill me with that.

Within days, new people meeting me, and even some of those who'd seen me when I first arrived, had no clue who I was or what I'd been through. They had no idea that I'd spent the majority of my life with "Indians" or that my heart was with my people.

However, a couple of men, on learning that I was widowed, even asked Mrs. Schuyler if they might call on me, but, to my relief, she put an end to that idea and we became friends as the days passed, swapping stories and getting to know each other.

One night I asked her, "Mrs. Schuyler, you said you don't know of anyone looking for a child who was taken, but do you know of anyone else who might?"

Thinking for a bit, she gave me the names of several people who'd been among the first groups of settlers in Marietta. I visited them in turn with a letter of introduction from Mrs. Schuyler.

"No, I'm sorry, I don't remember anyone looking for a white kid among the Indians," said one.

"Nope," answered another. "Not that I know of."

"Sorry, if there was anyone, I don't remember it."

I was at the point of giving up when I visited Mr. Ames, keeper of a small shop, to get some supplies for Mrs. Schuyler. She hadn't mentioned him, but since I was there, I asked, "Excuse me, sir. Do you know of anyone who's ever come through looking for a child taken by the natives?"

He looked at me over a pair of spectacles, the first I'd ever seen, but improbably matching one of the fantastical stories that Aaron had told me. I was actually a little disappointed that the "second eyes" weren't quite like I'd expected.

"How old a child?" he asked.

"Any age, really? The one I'm specifically interested in was probably taken sixteen or seventeen years ago."

He scratched his head and hemmed and hawed for a moment before he replied, "There were two brothers who came through two, three, hell, maybe even four years ago looking for a girl, their little sister, I think, who wuz taken by the Shawnee. Could have been about that time, just can't be sure."

"The Shawnee? Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah, best as I can recall."

"Do you remember their names?"

"Nah, can't say I do. Sorry."

Disappointed to have run into another fruitless lead, I thanked him and paid for the things Mrs. Schuyler wanted. I was picking them up to go when he added, "The little girl's name they wuz seeking wuz named Elizabeth... you know, like Mary's cousin, from the Bible."

I stopped, looking at him. "Elizabeth? Are you sure it might not have been Eliza?"

"Hmm, you know, I think you're right. Of course, Eliza is short for Elizabeth."

My heart was racing. "Can you tell me anything else about them? Maybe where they were going?"

"Nope, sorry, but I can tell you this: if they went up to Shawnee territory to look for that poor little girl, they're probably as dead as she is."

I thanked Mr. Ames again and thought about what he'd told me as I walked back to the church where Mrs. Schuyler helped the refugee families. He'd seemingly tried to take hope away from me, saying the men were probably dead, but I knew two things he didn't.

First, Aaron and Rhett had gone north, toward if not actually into Shawnee territory, and they'd both returned. If they could do it, perhaps the other men, who might be my brothers, could as well.

Second, the little girl that Mr. Ames had assumed was dead might not actually be dead. If my guess was correct, she might actually be me.

The Saawanwa had raided our home in Kentucky, but my adopted father's band had scared them away and saved me; however, no one knew that the Shawnee warriors had missed me hiding in the little cellar. Perhaps my brothers and other settlers had believed for all those years that I'd been taken north rather than to what I now believed, based on what I'd learned and the map I'd seen since, was well to the northwest.

As I walked, I wondered where Aaron was and what he'd say.

*****

July and August turned to August and September on the white man's calendar. As the days passed, I had to decline another potential suitor, personally this time, but I increasingly found myself wondering where Aaron was and whether he was safe and well.

As much as I hated to admit it, I missed him.

Mrs. Schuyler, who frequently schooled me as we worked, caught my look from time to time and would ask, "Thinking of someone?"

When I nodded, she followed up, asking, "Anyone I might know?"

I'd bite my tongue, not wanting to admit that I might have genuine interest in someone for the first time since my Running Bear was lost over five years before. I tried talking to him sometimes at night, but he'd said nothing to me since he'd told me to run.

Though I'd told her the basics, I finally opened up to Mrs. Schuyler about my captivity and my mixed emotions. I even told her that I often thought of Aaron; I didn't tell her what I sometimes did while lying in bed thinking of him. I was embarrassed that I missed the feeling and that it was sometimes easier to imagine with Aaron than it was to remember with Running Bear.

"You loved your husband and your little boy, Eliza, but they're gone now. I think you're worried about Aaron replacing them, but that doesn't have to be the case. You don't have to let them go; I suspect your heart's plenty big enough to stretch to let Aaron inside, too, right?"

I spent a lot of time thinking of what she said, wondering as the summer ended and fall approached if it might be true.

*****

One morning Mrs. Schuyler was smiling when she announced that the date was October 1st.

She'd taught me to understand dates, but they held little meaning and less sentiment to me so I interrupted her and asked, "Mrs. Schuyler, have you heard anything from Aaron? Do you have any idea where he is or when he might be back?"

"You really do have it for him, don't you, Eliza? Well, I for one am glad you're finally admitting it. Aaron's a good man and he'll treat you right."

"If he ever comes back," I said doubtfully. "I don't even know where he is or what he's doing."

She paused, looking at me questioningly. "Eliza, wait. You don't know what he's been doing?"

"No! I guess he and Rhett are off hunting again--"

"When they brought you here, how many furs did they bring with them?"

That made me think. They'd had nothing but their packs with food and supplies and their weapons. Why were they that far north if they weren't hunting?

"Girl, they've been scouts for General Wayne's Legion. They were going north to get info on the Shawnee, dodging groups looking for them like that group you ran into, when they found you. Didn't Aaron tell you that they brought you back rather than leaving you out there by yourself? And that was why Rhett disliked you so much? That you'd messed up their mission and put them in even more danger?"

"No!"

"Yes! And they headed north all over again once they left you here before going to the Indiana country for their next assignment."

"So they rescued me rather than doing their scouting work?"

"Yes, exactly! Peace talks were still ongoing with the Indians, so Aaron knew they had time. Word's been for a good while that those 'peace talks' aren't going to be successful in the end, so Mad Anthony needs to know how many braves the Indians have and where they are, so--"

"So they're really just spies!" I cried out, finally realizing why Aaron could tell me so little. "They spied on the Shawnee, and now they've gone to the southwest, possibly to spy on my people. No! No no no no!"

Tears flowing, I ran, ignoring her calls for me to stop, and went straight to her house, just down the street, and up into the attic. All of my things were quickly stuffed in a bag. I had to go, to leave Marietta and find my parents and my people, to warn them of the danger, no matter how dangerous that was for me.

Still fighting tears, I realized I'd let myself think of Aaron, to wonder what it might be like to be with him, while not really knowing him at all.

With my knife and hand axe on my belt, I carried the little bag down the ladder, wondering what supplies I might be able to get at Mr. Ames' store with the few coins I'd earned during the summer. Mrs. Schuyler had been so good to me, I would take nothing from her larder. Then, I opened the door to see Mrs. Schuyler and, to my surprise, Aaron approaching.

"There she is!" she exclaimed. "Eliza, I was going to tell you that the reason October 1st was going to be such a good day was that Aaron got back to Marietta very early this morning, after midnight, and would see you today, but you stormed off."

Turning to Aaron, she said, "You need to talk to her and tell her the truth," and turning back to me, she added, "And you, girl, you need to listen. Now, door's open so why don't you two go inside and not come out until you solve this problem."

Then she turned away and headed back toward the church, a whistle on her lips.

Aaron stepped up, right in front of me. "Eliza, I've missed you so much, and now, to see you this morning, looking so beautiful, as always. Even more beautiful than I remembered."

I looked at him, completely confused. He'd once turned away embarrassed when he could see how I truly looked, but now he told me that I was beautiful when I was wearing an ugly work dress with my hair up in a bun.

He hadn't told me the truth back then and now I found that he wasn't even a good liar!

"I'm sorry, Eliza. I thought you understood," he said. "Rhett and I were scouts for the army, gathering info. I quit a couple of weeks ago so I could come to you."

"But my people? You were spying on them?"

"I guess you could say that, but it's not exactly true either, not specifically anyway. I did try to find them for you, though. I'm not sure but I think they've moved further west, deeper into what they're calling the Indiana country. There are lots of Miami further to the north, with Little Turtle, but your tribe-- you said they're related to the Miami but not directly, right?-- and Scarred Turtle? No one's seen them in their former area for several years since after he was badly wounded in an attack-- possibly the one in which you were taken."

I slumped, shocked at the revelation and saddened by what it all meant. That's why they hadn't come to rescue me. My husband and no telling how many others were dead, and my father was so badly wounded that my tribe couldn't hold our land for our people.

I felt like falling and crying, but Aaron's arms surrounded me, holding me up. "Eliza, I'm so sorry to bring you this news, but I felt you needed to know so I left Rhett and my scouting job behind soon after learning it. "I've missed you every single day while I was gone, that's true, so much so that Rhett told me I was getting sloppy and was going to get myself killed, or even worse, get him killed."

He chuckled and I accidentally laughed; that sounded like his cousin.

"Now, I'm here, Eliza. I want to be with you, if you'll have me. I've actually got a farm down in Kentucky-- I bought it a few years ago after a couple of successful years hunting and trapping. Truthfully, I haven't spent that much time there yet so it's not much of a farm, yet, but we can go there and turn it into a real one so we can raise crops and horses and cows and babies--"

"You'd want to have babies with me?"

"Yes, sweetheart, of course. Many babies."

"Hmm... Aaron, how many is 'many'?"

"As many as you want," he replied, holding me tight to him so I could feel him and so he could feel every bit of me.

"Mmm, good answer," I agreed, but I said nothing more for his lips were on mine and my heart was truly happy for the first time in ages. Mrs. Schuyler might be right; it might be big enough after all.

*****

Mrs. Schuyler served as a sort of chaperone for the next few weeks while we talked through the scouting/spying issue. I explained to Aaron that Running Bear and even Two Dogs generally left home to hunt, to raid, or to go to war. There were ceremonies before the last two, but the hunt was whenever and wherever they wished and I'd naively assumed the same for those in the "white world."

Unfortunately, that world was more complicated than what I was used to, though Aaron pointed out something that gave me pause. "When bands of Indians are seen somewhere around here, they're not hunting and they're probably not spending too much time raiding unless they're a larger group. The smaller bands are most likely gathering info for their chiefs just like Rhett and I were doing for General Wayne's staff. I'm hoping the peace talks with the tribes will be successful, and hopefully soon, but if not, everyone wants the best info they can get to plan their attacks and their defenses."

He told me about a game called chess and even showed me a chessboard with all the pieces. I thought the horsey piece-- the one he insisted was a "night" but which looked nothing like nighttime to me-- was the cutest, but he explained how the different pieces were used. I looked at him, thoroughly confused as he did.

He tried again the next evening, explaining, "In chess, you can see the whole board and see all the pieces, but life and the Northwest Territory are too big. They may not know what's on the other side of the river... or the other side of the stockade wall. See, the generals and the great chiefs need to know what they have and what the other side has and where they all are so they can figure out how to use them most effectively. Just like in chess, charging straight ahead into battle may not be the best strategy."

To my surprise, that explanation sounded a lot like Scarred Turtle talking, making me miss my father and mother even more but it was finally in terms I understood. With that new sense of understanding for each other, a peace seemed to come over me and we walked back to Mrs. Schuyler's home, each with our arm around the other, each feeling the other's as-yet unspoken love.

When we reached the door, Aaron turned me toward him and said, "Eliza, I love you."

I laughed, nodding, "I was about to tell you that. I love you, too, Aaron Phipps."

He grinned and pulled us together, our lips touching, our tongues playing for the first time, and our hearts beating against each other. I wanted to invite him inside, to invite him into my bed, but the door opened and Mrs. Schuyler cleared her throat.

"Looks like things are looking up for you two. Fortunately for you, I know where you can find a good church if you need one."

Aaron and I both laughed, looking into each other's eyes, before we nodded, knowing that we'd probably need that church, or possibly a quiet bluff overlooking the river, really soon.

"Eliza, now say goodnight," said Mrs. Schuyler before laughing, "Oh well, I guess one more kiss won't hurt anything." She was still chuckling as she closed the door on us to allow us to do as she said.

*****

Aaron and I spent a lot of time talking and walking or sitting together over the next couple of weeks. My desire for him and to feel him, against me and inside me, grew with each passing day. I wanted to take him to the woods so we could go further-- after all, I'd been married before and wasn't the daughter of the chief in his place so I wasn't worried about what others might think, but Aaron said the risk of attack by native bands was too great to take such walks so we stayed in town or very close by.

Maybe he'd have been more willing if I'd explained just what I had in mind!

As it was, he asked me to marry him just days later anyway, and Mrs. Schuyler arranged for us to have the church on November 1st, one month to the day after Aaron's return. Since one of those circuit-rider preachers they talked about wasn't in town at the time, she convinced General Rufus Putnum to marry us. He was a founder of the town and the company behind it, an officer under General Wayne's command holding down the Marietta stockade, and one of the local judges, causing Aaron to joke about how many hats the poor man had to wear.

I never saw General Putnum wearing anything but his funny army hat so I wasn't sure what Aaron meant by that until years later.

Mrs. Schuyler was so nice to me, making my wedding dress and doing my hair for the ceremony. Being well into autumn, there weren't any flowers readily available, but she wove a couple of ribbons in my hair and told me I looked beautiful, making me hope that Aaron would think so too.

Mrs. Schuyler stood by me in the wedding, and, to my surprise, Rhett, who'd just gotten back to town a few days earlier, stood up for Aaron. We didn't invite many other guests, but quite a few showed up for the party afterward.

Mrs. Schuyler did us another big favor that day. She had Rhett go by her house and carry her trunk down to the church.

"I've decided that I need to get out of this house for a couple of nights as a little vacation," she said to Aaron and me. "I know you're just married, but I'd like for you two to watch my house for me, if you will. Since I won't be here, you can use my bed if you'd like." She added with a grin, "Oh, and there's plenty of fresh sheets in the chest over in the corner and a basin of fresh water and some towels on the stand over there. If you need them, I mean."

As soon as she was gone and we'd barred the front door, I turned to Aaron.

"I want you," I said.

"I've wanted you forever," he replied, "since even before I saw you standing stark naked like a Greek goddess in the middle of the forest."

I stared at him. "No. You looked so embarrassed to see me like that, I doubted for the longest time if you wanted anything to do with me."

Aaron moved up and put his arms around me, pulling me tight against him so I could feel his manhood hard against me. "No, dear. I was embarrassed, all right, but embarrassed at the thought you'd see what you'd done to me. Just like you're doing to me now."

Laughing that I hadn't even the possibility, I rocked myself over him. "I was so skinny then. You didn't think I was ugly?"

"No. I thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world, and I felt so bad for all you'd been through. I prayed to God that He would let me get you home safely so you'd be willing to give me a chance to be your man."

"Really?"

"Yes, I've been thanking Him for answering that prayer ever since."

"I love you, Aaron Phipps, and I'm really glad you got your prayer answered too."

"I love you, too, Eliza Phipps," he said, scooping me up in his arms, "and tonight, if I accidentally say God's name while we're making love, know that it will be in thanksgiving and not saying it in vain."

Chuckling, I nodded. "I understand, and I promise that I won't tell Mrs. Schuyler if you won't."

Laughing, he carried me into her bedroom to stand me on the floor so he could remove every stitch of my clothing, kissing me over and over again, every single part of me, as my skin became visible. I helped him with his clothes, too, a bit at a time, before he sat me on the edge of the bed and kissed his way down my body before lowering his lips to my mound.

Running Bear had kissed my touch spot before, but Aaron's kiss was different, lingering. Instead of switching to his fingers, I was speechless as his kissing continued and as his tongue started connecting with it, just right and repeatedly, I was ready to sing praises to Aaron and to God.

"Oh, fuck, Aaron! Fuck! What are you doing?"

"Such language, my love," he laughed. "Just wanting to make sure you're ready," he added before going back to it, leading to moans from me and more soft chuckles from him as he did what I didn't dream was possible.

He built me up with his tongue and then added a finger, making me gasp and say more naughty words before I finally cried out and tried to close my legs as I pushed him away.

Having sat up and braced myself to that point to watch the unbelievable show, I fell back then, overcome with euphoria and sweet feelings for my wonderful man who would do such a thing for me.

He was beside me then, holding me.

Kissing me.

And I was kissing him back, harder, deeper, before pushing him over on his back and swinging my leg over him. Raising up just a little over him, my nipples traced a pattern over his chest, touching him at times, just above him at others. Taking his hands, I playfully pinned them over his head, stretching forward as I did, my nipples just grazing his lips until he captured one and sucked it inside.

I was laughing as I let go of his hands and raised up so he lost his little prize, but he gained an even bigger prize a moment later when I reached back, raised his rod, and sank down on him, burying him within me. I grinned on seeing his eyes light up, but I raised up a bit and then sank down again.

By the third stroke, he was fully buried in me and our dance began, me riding him and him bucking up into me, making funny sounds as our bodies smacked together but creating wonderful sensations too.

"Oh, God," he said, "Eliza, you're so amazing. This! This is amazing too.

I sang his praises in reply and whispered my love before we kissed and kept loving.

However, it wasn't long before I started tiring; Aaron must have felt it too, so he picked me up and rolled us over so he was then on top. Driving back into me, I was happy, wanting him there, wanting him to be filling me with his fullness and with his seed. Harder then, he slammed me, as hard as I'd ever been pounded, and holding him tight with my hands and my legs circled behind him, I finally exploded inside once more as I felt him pulsing, my soul filled with love and my womb with his seed for the first time.

Moving off me moments later, he lay beside me and encircled me with his arm. "I love you, Eliza, and I'm so thankful to have you."

"Same here, Aaron. I love you too," I said as I snuggled against him and kissed him.

*****

Two days later, after our extended wedding night, we paid the washerwoman to wash all of Mrs. Schuyler's sheets and towels before heading to the church to let her know it was safe to come home. I wasn't sure if we'd succeeded in making a baby, but we'd done everything possible to make it happen, and we both admitted to be a bit sore. Aaron was even afraid for a time that we'd both have bruises after our "doggy" adventure, but I was happy when we found none since that was something I looked forward to trying with him again soon.

A few days later, Aaron bought a new rifle, a so-called carbine with a shorter barrel that made it easier to carry and load, and he taught me to handle and shoot it. Then he taught me how to load and handle his and Rhett's longer rifles.

"I hope you'll never have to use this, but I don't want to take any chances."

He was surprised at how good I was with the rifle so he decided to teach me to shoot his pistol, but he put it away after a single shot-- one very poor shot-- laughingly telling me I should never touch it again.

We stayed in Marietta for a few more days while Rhett finished his scouting affairs with the army post, and then Rhett, Aaron, and I said our goodbyes to Mrs. Schuyler and the people of the town. We took a flat-bottom barge along with two other well-armed families and traveled south for several days until we reached the little village of Maysville, Kentucky. There, we said goodbye to our new friends and headed to the neighboring town of Washington, where we purchased horses and Aaron spent the rest of the afternoon teaching me to ride.

I'd never been on a horse before, but quickly took a great dislike to trying to ride the animal sideways in a skirt. When he saw the futility of it and the distance we had to ride, he agreed to buy me a pair of men's trousers in the little general store just down the street from the livery stable. He went in by himself and bought me the smallest pair of pants he could find since he was afraid the owner wouldn't sell them to us if he knew a woman would be wearing them. They were still a little big, so I sewed a pleat in them that evening and rolled up the legs until they were good enough.

Rhett and Aaron teased me about the look of those trousers the next morning, but they shut up when they saw how much better I could ride with them versus the dress. Later that morning with our supplies restocked, we left Washington and headed southwest toward the little town of Cross Plains, near Aaron's and Rhett's farms.

It was a four-day ride from Washington to where the cousins had bought land next to Aaron's older brother, Josh, a veteran of the Continental Army who'd received a land grant for his service in the Revolution. Josh managed all three farms while Aaron and Rhett had been on active duty in the Kentucky militia and during their later scouting for the army.

From what Aaron had told me of them, I wasn't surprised in the least when Josh and all of his family came rushing out of the big cabin to greet us once they recognized Aaron and Rhett on two of the horses approaching their home. However, they were a bit shocked when they discovered the third rider was a woman rather than a man. Carrie, Josh's wife and the mother of five, was so excited to have another woman around, even if it was one that wore trousers, and she gave me a big hug. However, I couldn't help but smile when I noticed that she looked a little relieved after I changed into a dress soon after arriving.

Since they'd done some initial clearing and work on the farm with Josh but had yet to build homes of their own, Aaron and Rhett each had a room on the back of the main house.

"It's just until we can build our own," Aaron had warned me, even before we married.

"I don't care, as long as you're there with me," I answered.

Therefore, Aaron, Rhett, and Josh spent most of the winter, when the weather allowed it, clearing land and building fences and a barn on Aaron and Rhett's farms. By late winter, they'd collected enough logs to build Rhett a single room cabin and Aaron and me a larger dog-trot-style home.

"I'm going to have a lot of plowing and planting to do come spring, so we need to get all this done while we can," Aaron told me one evening when I expressed worry about how hard he was having to work, even in the dead of winter. We were huddled together under the blankets in our room.

"I know that, Aaron, but I don't want you so tired that you won't be able to do the plowing and seed sowing that needs to be done right now," I said, giggling.

"Don't worry, I'll never be too tired for that," he grinned, kissing my neck and then down.

"Oooh! That tickles!"

"Mm-ha," he agreed, tickling me more, up top with his lips and down low with fingers that spread me, making me desperate for him to come in. I was kissing him back then, pulling him up and positioning his wonderful cock in my hungry, wet pussy. In he slid, spreading me as I spread myself as wide as I would go before hooking my ankles around him.

"Oh, plow me, farmboy," I teased, "and plant that seed deep in my belly. Yes, plow me hard!"

Aaron was kissing me as he fucked me, harder and harder, faster and faster, as I begged him, bringing me off as he'd learned to do before he slammed against me one last time and sent blast after blast of his blessed seed deep within me.

*****

Early Summer 1794

"Eliza! Eliza!"

I hurried out to see him. Though I'd experienced some nausea, at almost five months along I was starting to feel the weight gain and the cumbersomeness that was so alien to the active way I'd been almost all of my life.

"What's wrong, Aaron?"

"We received a letter from Harrodsburg today. We need to go there; I think I found one."

The thought excited me, but I shook my head when I looked at the map he kept pinned to the wall. "Aaron, I don't think I can ride that far right now and I'm sure not going to try to walk it."

He laughed. "Not a chance you're riding your horse or walking; I'm going to see about borrowing Mr. Lawrence's wagon. In that, it shouldn't be more than a three-, four-day journey at most. The crops are in and Rhett and Josh have agreed to watch our place while we're gone."

Aaron had sent out about thirty or forty letters to early settlements in Kentucky during the winter months, asking for information on families with situations similar to mine. He'd received a few replies, but this was the first that looked promising.

Using Mr. Lawrence's wagon and our two horses to pull it, we reached Harrodsburg a few days later and got directions to the Butterfield farm a short distance away. The family name sounded vaguely familiar, but I worried that my memory of my mother teaching me to churn butter was stronger than the family name I'd forgotten.

Like when we arrived at the Phipps farm, the whole family came up to see us when we brought the wagon to a stop, but this time they crowded around before we could even get out.

A man looked at me with tears in his eyes, shaking his head. "Eliza, I'd recognize you anywhere, little sister," he said, pulling me out of the wagon into a hug. "I'm your brother, Tim, and that's our big brother, Mark. This is my wife Patricia and...."

We stayed with them for over a week, sharing stories about our family, with me remembering more with each passing day, and Tim and Mark quietly filling me and Aaron in on the happenings of that fateful evening eighteen years before.

Silas, our eldest brother, and Mark had rushed to Harrod's Town for help, but the Shawnee band was large and split up to attack several farms in the area. As a result, it was the next day before anyone could come to our aid. They found Tim alive but wounded a short distance away. He and Johnny had tried to run for it when the Shawnee broke down the door and killed our parents and our uncle; Tim had gotten away but Johnny had been killed just outside the house.

Leaving Tim to recover with a family in Harrod's Town, Silas and Mark had been in the party that pursued the Shawnee, thinking that they'd taken me, but they'd lost track of them at some point. While everyone else gave me up for lost, our oldest brothers never gave up hope of finding me and had searched again repeatedly over the years, including soon after the Ohio country opened for settlement, but they'd always concentrated on looking for me with the Shawnee well to the north and northeast rather than in the Indiana country in the far west.

"Silas and I were part of the Kentucky militia four years ago while Tim ran the farm, and our wives took care of our houses. We marched north with General Harmar into the Northwest Territory, but that was a complete disaster and Si was one of those killed. I came home after that, and decided that I'd never leave again, not wanting our family to lose anyone else. We'd lost far too many already, but now, due to the grace of God, you're back."

We weren't there for good but we got to know my brothers and their families, and started making trips to see each other at least once a year. That made me happy, but there was still one hole in my heart, one I worried that I'd never fill.

******

1794 - 1803

Peace officially came to the Northwest Territory in 1795 with the signing of the Treaty of Greenville, less than a year after the confederated tribes were defeated at the battle the whites called Fallen Timbers and then betrayed by their British allies as they escaped.

With the Shawnee war chief Blue Jacket leading the Indian forces, we suspected that the rumor Aaron heard from one of his friends in Kentucky militia that Two Dogs was among the Shawnee braves badly wounded and carried off the field might have been true. Whether he succumbed to his wounds or survived was unknown, but, to the best of our knowledge, neither he nor Falling Waters was ever seen again.

Though peace was proclaimed in the Northwest Territory, it was years before the land was truly peaceful and Aaron strenuously objected to me venturing there in search of my adopted family.

"Your family, if we could find them, would doubtless love you to death, but there are a lot of other families and tribes there that would probably love to torture us to death-- I say us since you know I'd never let you go alone-- and make our bodies disappear forever due to all that's happened between the whites and the Indians in that area. We'll try someday when it's safe, Eliza, but not now. Please?"

I didn't like it, not one bit, but I understood and finally agreed. While I wanted to find my adopted parents and family, my immediate family was now my top priority. Years passed and eventually I became resigned to the fact that I'd never see my adopted family again.

Meanwhile, our house on the farm near Cross Plains was practically bursting at the seams like my old Shawnee dress during my escape, with Aaron adding a wing on the back and eventually adding a second floor. I delivered six children, three boys and three girls, between 1794 and 1802, and Aaron and I were really enjoying trying for number seven as 1803 rolled along.

Our house was filled with the happy shouts of our children and their many Phipps and Harmon cousins after Rhett finally found love with a young widow in nearby Lexington. Our kids loved seeing their Butterfield cousins each year, too.

However, Aaron continued his letter writing over the years, especially to military officers and leaders of new settlements, particularly after Congress established the Indiana Territory in 1800.

In late June 1803, Aaron came into the cabin with our youngest son on one arm, our youngest daughter on the other, and a letter in his pocket. He handed it to me and I started crying as I read, scaring our children until Aaron convinced them that there really was such a thing as happy tears.

The letter was transcribed and carried by a white missionary from the words of Bird Who Dances after she'd eventually received one of Aaron's letters written nearly two years earlier. In her letter, she said that Scarred Turtle, though older and somewhat crippled, still lived, as did two of my adopted brothers, all three of my sisters-in-law, and numerous nieces and nephews. Running Bear's parents were gone, and his brother had been killed in the war.

I wrote back the next day but I'm not sure if the letter ever arrived; there was no regular mail service to or from that area at the time, so after our crops were harvested in the fall of 1803, Aaron and I left our kids with their relatives and we journeyed by horseback for nearly three weeks to reach the Indiana Territory and locate a village deep in within it.

To make the ride faster and easier, I wore riding trousers almost the entire way.

However, as we entered the little village, which was smaller than I recalled in our former location, the trousers were in my saddlebag and I was hoping we'd finally found the right place. Aaron and I dismounted and walked with no weapons in our hands, leading our horses as the people came out to see my burly, dark-haired and bearded white man escorting me, a well-tanned white woman with a long blonde braid but wearing the traditional dress and moccasins of my people. I'd made them using deerskins Aaron harvested for me sometime after the birth of my last baby, and I decorated them for my late Running Bear as well as for Aaron, to show that both were in my heart.

As we walked through the village, we got many questioning looks but I heard a number of comments in the native tongue, until someone asked, "Is that White Doe?" After that, a number of others started asking the same thing and then there was clapping and shouting as a number of people called my name as I smiled and nodded, waving.

The commotion drew attention and more people, and moments later, I saw an older woman look out the open door of a log cabin that looked much like the one we'd originally built on Rhett's farm; there were several others as well as a few traditional wiikiaami wigwams.

She said something back into the cabin and then came running, followed a moment later by an elderly man hobbling along using a staff. Seeing her approaching, I recognized her immediately despite the lines in her face and the gray in her hair and I ran to her, tears streaming down my cheeks, as she cried, "My White Doe! My sweet girl!" and I said "Mother!" in reply.

Aaron said Scarred Turtle nodded to him as he hobbled out but the older man joined Bird Who Dances and me in a group hug, with him crying just like the two of us as I called him father and told them both that I'd always loved and missed them and I always would.

It had taken most of a lifetime, but I'd found my love and my family-- all of it that remained anyway-- once more, and I was happy as I reached out to Aaron to introduce them all and make our circle complete.

The End

_______________

Author's Notes:

Thanks for reading and for rating and for any favorites, follows, or comments.

This story has been percolating in my head for several years but there were a few issues that kept me from getting beyond outline form on the computer. While watching the History Channel recently, I saw two episodes of "Kevin Costner's The West" that solved my context and timeline issues, so I've finished it for the 2025 Oggbashan Memorial Event. Ogg sometimes liked to write stories with an historical setting so I felt this might be one he would have enjoyed.

HISTORICAL NOTES (just for those REALLY interested!):

There were numerous examples of white children or women taken by Native American tribes, and it became a common trope in Hollywood with movies like "The Searchers" and "Two Rode Together" and practically every other western TV series. However, it was fairly common for those taken to be assimilated into the tribe and never return to their former lives.

Two examples of those who did are Mary Draper Ingles of Virginia, who escaped captivity by the Shawnee in 1755 after being taken in the Draper's Meadow Massacre earlier that year, and Cynthia Anne Parker of Texas, who was captured by Comanches in 1836 and not "rescued" until 1860 after having become part of the tribe, marrying, and having children. Mary Draper Ingles escaped with the "old Dutch Woman," but Cynthia Anne Parker didn't want to leave her tribe and was taken away by force. She had a difficult time readjusting to life and even tried to return, but was prevented from doing so. About ten years later, she ended up refusing food and water until she died a short time later.

According to this storyline, Eliza's family settled just outside Harrod's Town, Kentucky in early 1776. Established in 1774, it was later renamed Harrodsburg. Eliza was about six and a half years of age when they settled there.

Kentucky was a hunting ground of a number of tribes, including tribes north of the Ohio River, and it had the further advantage of having some "salt licks" which allowed naturally occurring brine to be collected so the water could be boiled away to leave the salt residue behind. This was sometimes used for curing meat as well as a seasoning. The influx of settlers was so great that Kentucky became the first state west of the Appalachian Mountains in 1792, about 18 years after the first settlement was established.

The Northwest Territory was organized by the fledgling United States government in 1787 after Great Britain ceded all lands south of the Great Lakes to the U. S. following the American Revolution. The area was then home to numerous Native American tribes that were bought out or forced out by arms or treaties over the next 45 years. The area eventually became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.

Harmar's referenced defeat in 1790 was bad, but St. Clair's defeat on November 4, 1791, is generally seen as the worst defeat of the United States Army in U. S. history. Of approximately 1,000 soldiers entering the battle, about 2/3rds were killed or captured (with those captured later being slaughtered) and almost all of the 200 camp followers either being killed or, in the case of a few women and some children, being taken by the natives to be adopted into tribes similar to the events in this story.

According to Ohio History Connection (resources. ohiohistory. org), following attacks by Native American tribes, settlers on the Muskingum River had mostly withdrawn to safety so the Ohio Company's settled lands consisted primarily of Marietta and Belpre in Southeast Ohio in 1793 when a significant part of this story is set, with fewer than 500 settlers in the area. Marietta, which is featured in this story, was established in 1788 and was the first permanent white settlement in the Northwest Territory. General Rubin Putnum, one of the founders of the town and the Ohio Company made a brief appearance in the story in his historical role.

Finally, I've tried to be fair to everyone within the historical setting presented but also be as historically accurate as I could from nearly 250 years later within the timeframe allowed for completing this story. Hatreds and divisions ran deep between the various Native American peoples and the white settlers, but people are people within their own groups, both good and bad and a great many somewhere in between.